How Much Time to Download a Movie from Itunes

[torontoboy]

Hi, sorry for the newb question, but I am on the verge of pulling the trigger on an ATV , and am wondering how much time it takes between hitting the download button on a movie in iTunes (both SD and HD), and when its ready to watch? many thx.

[Tallest Skil]

It depends completely on your internet connection. We can tell you nothing from what you have given us.

[dmm219]

I have cable with 5M down. HD movies take less than 2 minutes to be ready. SD movies are basically instantaneous.

I'm a little particular though, I like to wait until the entire movie is DLed before I watch it, just so I KNOW there wont be any hiccups. That can take up and hour or so with an HD movie.

[torontoboy]

Fair enough. I have a high speed connection through the phone lcompany as ISP (Bell Sympatico in Canada). Also have a Time Capsule and speedstream modem. I think that's it.

[mark34]

For the last year or so I have had super fast downloads. I have a strong cable modem connection. Usually HD rentals are ready to watch within 45 seconds.

However, recently I have found that downloads are taking a really really long time... hours.

I was even forced against my will recently to rent a standard definition movie with my kids recently and it took a very long time.

I found many conversations googling this issue. seems it has been for last couple of weeks. It doesn't seem to be a topic here. Anyone else experiencing this issue? From the threads I have read, it appears to be an apple issue. I am surprised there hasn't been an uproar on this forum.

here is one thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....38952&tstart=0

Mark

[RangerOne]

Originally Posted by torontoboy

Hi, sorry for the newb question, but I am on the verge of pulling the trigger on an ATV , and am wondering how much time it takes between hitting the download button on a movie in iTunes (both SD and HD), and when its ready to watch? many thx.

On my 20 mbps cable modem in California:

SD movies: more or less instantly available
HD movies: 15-45 seconds

It not only depends on the bandwidth of your internet connection, but also on the perceived bandwidth from your location. Even if you have a fast internet connection, the shared network segments between you and Apple may not be that fast.

One quick test would be to just fire up iTunes and purchase a movie. It'll download to your computer, but it'll give you an idea of how long it'll take to download to ATV. If it's a 120-minute movie and it downloads in 100 minutes, your movie will start almost instantly, 120 minutes and you might need to wait a minute or two, 150 minutes and you might need to wait a while. That's assuming ATV gets the movie from the same data center as iTunes, of course.

ATV downloads 1% of the movie or so, then if the download speed is greater than real-time it'll let you start watching it. If your connection slows down and you run out of buffered movie, it'll pause until it can continue.

All in all, I can get into ATV, find a movie, purchase and start watching it before I can even LOAD my Cox On Demand menu. And my ATV, set to 1080P mode for my 56" 1080P HDTV, looks fantastic. SD movies seem to be better than SD on Cox, and HD movies are breathtaking (I have both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, and ATV is close - I'll take a $4.99 HD rental over a $30 BluRay disk any day). I currently have ATV streaming from a Mac Mini, but once or twice a week I need to restart iTunes because it loses the connection to ATV (iTunes issue, not ATV).

Other than that and the fact that I want to hook a USB drive up to ATV and have it be my media hub without the need for the Mac Mini, those are my only complaints. I think ATV is a fantastic price, it seems to sell well around here, I have quite a few friends who are happy with it, and I think Apple will keep building their game.

[tkidBOSTON]

I've only rented HD stuff on my aTV and so far I have had no problems. I've rented, walked away to make popcorn or grab a beer and its ready to watch when I get back. I'm not there to time it but it definitely takes me less than 1-4 minutes.

I've heard the complaints about it taking a very long time for some people but I have never yet experienced this in the dozen or so times I've rented HD content.

[jhnsmith978]

It depends actually what is speed of your internet connection because sometime you need to buffer whole movie before going to watch it if your connection speed is low...

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