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Apple TV 3 6.1 Update Buffer Issue

Apple TV 3 - video judder fix

I have previously used MP4Tools on mac to convert 720p MKVs to M4v files for Apple TV 3. Everything worked great until...

I upgraded ATV 3 to software version 6.1 (and then to 6.1.1) and began to notice this frustrating motion judder/framedropping problem on content that previously did not judder. Video would play smoothly for 10 mins then the judder would kick in. A flick on the fast forward button followed quickly by play would offer a brief remedy but within 10 mins the judder returned again.

After troubleshooting every which way and conceding that my only remaining option was to hope a future Apple update would correct the problem I tried re-muxing an offending file in Subler. The result - no judder, smooth playback like before!

Here's what I did:

  1. Open Subler for mac (download)
  2. File/New
  3. Drag offending mp4/m4v/mkv file into window
  4. Select Tracks to add
  5. File/Save As
  6. Select File Format 'Video-MPEG-4' (m4v)
  7. If filesize is greater than 4GB check '64 bits chunk offset' option
  8. Hit Save and remuxing will begin
  9. Add meta data/artwork if necessary

Now add to iTunes and play through Apple TV.

I was having exactly the symptoms described on this thread and the actions described above solved the problem for me using Apple TV 3 with iTunes on mac on a wired home network.

Hope this helps someone.
 
delfster said:
I have previously used MP4Tools on mac to convert 720p MKVs to M4v files for Apple TV 3. Everything worked great until...

I upgraded ATV 3 to software version 6.1 (and then to 6.1.1) and began to notice this frustrating motion judder/framedropping problem on content that previously did not judder. Video would play smoothly for 10 mins then the judder would kick in. A flick on the fast forward button followed quickly by play would offer a brief remedy but within 10 mins the judder returned again.

After troubleshooting every which way and conceding that my only remaining option was to hope a future Apple update would correct the problem I tried re-muxing an offending file in Subler. The result - no judder, smooth playback like before!

Here's what I did:

  1. Open Subler for mac (download)
  2. File/New
  3. Drag offending mp4/m4v/mkv file into window
  4. Select Tracks to add
  5. File/Save As
  6. Select File Format 'Video-MPEG-4' (m4v)
  7. If filesize is greater than 4GB check '64 bits chunk offset' option
  8. Hit Save and remuxing will begin
  9. Add meta data/artwork if necessary

Now add to iTunes and play through Apple TV.

I was having exactly the symptoms described on this thread and the actions described above solved the problem for me using Apple TV 3 with iTunes on mac on a wired home network.

Hope this helps someone.
Click to expand...

Sounds perfect but I have 400 1080p movies :( I think I will try to downgrade I have the first appltv3 version I think the downgrade still works
 
I'm surprised Apple haven't patched this issue yet. This is borderline ridiculous for a buggy firmware/software update to cause such an issue and after so many weeks things haven't been fixed yet...
 
betman said:
I'm surprised Apple haven't patched this issue yet. This is borderline ridiculous for a buggy firmware/software update to cause such an issue and after so many weeks things haven't been fixed yet...
Click to expand...

is it really a problem on the encode ?
is appletv not supporting the open and free codecs ?
 
bobby0724 said:
is it really a problem on the encode ?
is appletv not supporting the open and free codecs ?
Click to expand...

There's nothing free and open about the Apple TV so I wouldn't assume that the Apple TV is now working in a way that Apple will bother to fix.
Remuxing the videos with the steps from delfster solved the problem for me.
 
bobby0724 said:
is it really a problem on the encode ?
is appletv not supporting the open and free codecs ?
Click to expand...

When I buy a show via iTunes and then watch it via Apple TV, I expect things to run as they should. When I get a buggy picture because Apple messed up the firmware, then all I can do is wait until they fix the issue. Unfortunately Apple messed up and to this day things haven't been fixed...

On the plus side I have started using Hulu/Netflix instead of making loads of purchases via iTunes, saving heaps of $$$ in the process.
 
betman said:
When I buy a show via iTunes and then watch it via Apple TV, I expect things to run as they should. When I get a buggy picture because Apple messed up the firmware, then all I can do is wait until they fix the issue. Unfortunately Apple messed up and to this day things haven't been fixed...
Click to expand...
I don't have the stuttering problem with any content bought from iTunes. It's only with things that I've manually added to iTunes.
 
bobby0724 said:
Sounds perfect but I have 400 1080p movies :( I think I will try to downgrade I have the first appltv3 version I think the downgrade still works
Click to expand...

This.

I refuse to remux all my files into the same container over again because of Apple being Apple.

If I need to remux everything, I am just buying a different box to stream my content to. Something that supports the MKV container and is more friendly to content.
 
WSFrazier said:
This.

I refuse to remux all my files into the same container over again because of Apple being Apple.

If I need to remux everything, I am just buying a different box to stream my content to. Something that supports the MKV container and is more friendly to content.
Click to expand...

I agree actually i just buy an LG Smartv and accedentally discover that PLEX fully support all m4v movies and all of them look perfect so i remove the appletv from this tv
 
So no chance of downgrading now...? This looks like it's happening to everyone - and subler doesn't do well with going from DTS to surround formats from what I can tell :/
 
chrfr said:
I don't have the stuttering problem with any content bought from iTunes. It's only with things that I've manually added to iTunes.
Click to expand...

It happens with iTunes stuff as well. I recently bought "The Returned" series 1 and the picture was extremely juddery until I changed the picture settings from 60Hz to 50. Some people have complained that they've even had to change from 1080 to 720 for some of their content to play properly...

Bottom line: Apple messed up seriously. They must have idiots in charge of Apple TV if it's taking them weeks upon weeks to fix this issue.
 
betman said:
It happens with iTunes stuff as well. I recently bought "The Returned" series 1 and the picture was extremely juddery until I changed the picture settings from 60Hz to 50. Some people have complained that they've even had to change from 1080 to 720 for some of their content to play properly...

Bottom line: Apple messed up seriously. They must have idiots in charge of Apple TV if it's taking them weeks upon weeks to fix this issue.
Click to expand...

I guess I've been lucky but I also don't have a lot of iTunes content. It would be nice if Apple would get this fixed; I can't run my ATV at 50Hz with my TV, so the only workaround I have is to remux the videos through Subler when necessary. Fortunately I mostly use the ATV as a Netflix client and don't have surround so I'm not seeing the audio issues others are having there.
 
I too have had issues with the latest update.

1. No 5.1 audio in Netflix
2. Long load times on all media
3. Jerky playback, starts approximately 20 minutes in, if you stop and restart the video it runs for a further 10 mins or so and jerks again. Videos encoded with quick start on play fine.

I re-encoded a few films with quick start enabled and it fixed them but to get everything resolved I ended up going back to 5.3

Now everything loads much faster, no jerky videos and I get 5.1 audio again in Netflix. Whoever did the QC on 6.1.1 needs his head kicked in.
 
So glad I found this thread, this issue was driving me nuts, doesn't help I've recently upgraded tv and installed home theatre so have been messing with settings for days to try and fix thinking it was part of my new set up!

Issue exactly the same, 10-20 minutes in judder became unbearable on normal scenes never mind panning shots. Pausing and rewinding fixed briefly before it would start up again.

Restoring Apple TV did nothing.

Downgrading as stated in previous post has indeed fixed the issue. Tested on 1080p material.

What a shambles from apple on this one!
 
I have also been experiencing issues with 720/1080p videos converted through XMedia Recode. I am attempting the downgrade to 5.3 now. Has anyone tested the versions between 5.3 and 6.1.1?
 
I was looking the WWDC14 thru my appletv today and it looks that is not only the movies i was experiencing the frame rate buffer issue during the conference, it really sucks
 
bobby0724 said:
I was looking the WWDC14 thru my appletv today and it looks that is not only the movies i was experiencing the frame rate buffer issue during the conference, it really sucks
Click to expand...

That was probably a network traffic issue for you. The stream was flawless aside from one pause about 3/4 of the way through for me.
 
kittonian said:
I did some experimenting tonight and found that on 720p sources I don't have this issue, however on all 1080p sources I do (TV Shows and Movies). I thought it might have something to do with the metadata encoding via subler but it turns out that doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

Definitely need Apple to fix this one!
Click to expand...

Here I was thinking of getting a model 3 since I'm tired of waiting for this elusive next generation model with the App store support, etc. I just hate losing XBMC options because Apple REFUSES to support MKVs and AVIs (and I don't care to lose further quality by converting AVIs; MKVs could be converted, but then I'd lose features like 7.1 DTS-HD MA and DolbyTrue Sound that XBMC can handle and Apple doesn't give a crap about.

A friend came over and I was going to demonstrate my home theater and the AppleTV 2 REFUSED to play any videos from my computer. Reloading iTunes made no difference. I'm thinking now a reboot of the AppleTV might have helped. It just gave a busy signal that would finally say it had a problem connecting. I've seen that once before and a reboot fixed it, but I've NEVER had that problem with my 1st gen AppleTV units. They always work...well except for one thing recently (other than the server-side thing that killed them all earlier this year for a few weeks).

I just encoded the Anne of Green Gables set of DVDs using Handbrake. I've got the latest versions of Subler and MetaZ for setting flags and Meta information (Subler can do Meta data on its own, but it doesn't use all fields and never has chapter labeling so I still use MetaZ which took over for MetaX which had a LOT of issues sometimes and couldn't be trusted always so I had to be sure and use backups). Anyway, thus far MetaZ has been doing a great job labeling Blu-Ray encodes and unlike MetaX, it never seemed to create an unusable file, even if writing to it multiple times.

But when I went to try the Anne of Green Gables from an Apple TV Gen1, it would start playing audio with no picture and then freeze the whole unit when you hit stop. I remember this same behavior from a long time ago and it was MetaX screwing something up in the file that caused it. Sure enough, after some testing, I found that it was the labeling with MetaZ that made it unplayable on AppleTV (some of the files wouldn't even import into iTunes, but the ones that did would play there and all would play in XBMC, so I'm guessing it's some kind of meta data corruption issue). The ONLY thing I can think of is this bug must ONLY occur with either SD material OR with 4:3 material since I have not had an HD 16:9 or 2.35:1 file have this problem ever with MetaZ. The solution was to just use iTunes to put in the Meta Data (older versions of iTunes sometimes wouldn't always put the cover picture on for some unknown reason, but I've not seen that problem in LONG time now).

So, I would not rule out a corruption of Meta Data or something along those lines as potentially causing problems. Subler is the only GUI program I know of, offhand that can set things like the 720/1080 flags. I had a shell only method, but Subler was just more convenient. But testing here hasn't shown any direct correlation with Subler causing the problem. Changing a soundtrack file with Subler did make it worse in iTunes (the files would then no longer load, but that was only AFTER putting it through MetaZ, not before so I still suspect MetaZ as the culprit.).

No whether something like that has anything to do with the ATV3 update having issues, I can't say. I do know my 1080p encodes (I do one in addition to 720p when I get a new Blu-Ray for when I get my new projector) play just fine on my ATV2 unit and they've all been run through Subler/MetaZ.
 
Solution for those who can't downgrade

Not ideal, but I found an app that streams from a computer to appletv called beamer which does not exhibit the problems introduced with apple's latest update. It costs $15 dollars, but it does have a free trial version so you can see if it works for you. Obviously, i'm far less than thrilled that I am essentially forced to pay for an outside app in order to make my hardware work again, but it's cheaper than buying a new streaming hub (when i'm in the market for a new streaming hub, I'll be looking outside apple's walls to be sure).

The app also has some added benefits, as it can stream MKV's without the need to remux them, including those which contain DTS audio. All things considered, this app is something I would have purchased long ago had I known about it, as it gives the hardware streamability that apple annoyingly doesn't support natively on the device.

Edit: spelled the name of the app wrong
 
Last edited:
So just to verify, using Subler and the '64 bits chunk offset' option is the fix for this?

Been using MP4Tools for everything, guess I can switch apps. Is MP4Tools the only app that would cause issues, or videos done with handbrake causing the same issues?
 
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