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ATV4 WiFi Superspeed

kagharaht

kagharaht

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
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Well, finally. ATV4 using Airport Utility for iOS finally streams at nearly 600MB/s. NO MORE STUTTERING streaming content from my iTunes Home Sharing Server. The old ATV3 with its pathetic 65MB/s is not missed at all.

One thing a little strange is that when I set Surround to "Auto" the receiver sets itself to "PCM Multichannel" rather than DD. I do have a 7.1 receiver and set up. Perhaps changing ATV4 to Dolby Surround will fix it. I don't think PCM Multichannel is really outputting it to all 7.1 speakers like DD or DDEX when ATV4 is set to Auto. Anyone know?
 
kagharaht said:
One thing a little strange is that when I set Surround to "Auto" the receiver sets itself to "PCM Multichannel" rather than DD. I do have a 7.1 receiver and set up. Perhaps changing ATV4 to Dolby Surround will fix it. I don't think PCM Multichannel is really outputting it to all 7.1 speakers like DD or DDEX when ATV4 is set to Auto. Anyone know?
Click to expand...
My receiver does the same thing .. PCM when the Apple TV is on auto. I manually set the Apple TV to Dolby.
 
kagharaht said:
Well, finally. ATV4 using Airport Utility for iOS finally streams at nearly 600MB/s. NO MORE STUTTERING streaming content from my iTunes Home Sharing Server. The old ATV3 with its pathetic 65MB/s is not missed at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's pretty awesome! The Speedtest app shows I'm getting the full speed of my cable connection (actually a little more at 105Mbps) and streams start nearly instantaneously. Being able to multitask between things is so nice. It's a fast little machine. It's much faster to send photos to the TV (even 12mp iPhone 6s photos) and 1080p content from my 6s and Air 2, but the 4K video recordings can still be somewhat stuttery on my Airport Extreme (current AC gen). I wish the iPhone could send a 1080p stream to the TV instead. Perhaps they still need to optimize the software?
 
kagharaht said:
Well, finally. ATV4 using Airport Utility for iOS finally streams at nearly 600MB/s. NO MORE STUTTERING streaming content from my iTunes Home Sharing Server. The old ATV3 with its pathetic 65MB/s is not missed at all.
Click to expand...

I also have that experience. I used to have some issues with the ATV3 at times, but know it's a blast. The only thing I find puzzling is that Speediest on the ATV shows me 130Mbit/s downstream. I should have only 100 though. Maybe my cable provider upgraded without telling me
 
PCM is surround sound (5.1 or 7.1), it just means the ATV does the decoding instead of your receiver. Same audio either way, you might just have boost your volume a few clicks to make up for the offset when DD is passed through, initiates Dialog Norm, and makes it sound louder
 
Gueeds said:
PCM is surround sound (5.1 or 7.1), it just means the ATV does the decoding instead of your receiver. Same audio either way, you might just have boost your volume a few clicks to make up for the offset when DD is passed through, initiates Dialog Norm, and makes it sound louder
Click to expand...
Interesting. Help me understand please. So if the content is 5.1 and my receiver is 7.1 with all 7.1 speakers set up, the Audio will only come out of 5.1 speakers? The other 2 are left out or silent? Does ATV matrix 5.1 content to 7.1 like DPLXII, DDEX on the receiver?

In order to utilize all 7.1 speakers I should set ATV4 to Dolby Surround instead of Auto. Because if I understand this right Auto will just output sound per specific channel from the source content.
 
If you get a 5.1 source on a 7.1 recover, it should be possible to matrix it out, depending on your receiver, like 2.0 > Pro Logic, which I use to get surround on stereo sources like Hulu and Showtime.

In the PL case, it has to come in as 2.0 PCM to do the matrixing. Even a 2.0 DD signal cannot be expanded.

I only have a 5.1 receiver so I'm not going to be of much help here.
 
I was able to test it out using the Surround Speaker Check App suggested by niteflyr. It checks 5.1 only for now. Be nice if they come up with 7.1 one day. I also tested stereo music source.

ATV4 Set to Auto, only 5.1 channels/Speakers plays during test. The receiver outputs to PCM Multichannel 5.1. Leaving 2 channels/speakers with no sound. With stereo source like Music, only 2 Channels/Speakers output sound. The rest where silent.

ATV4 Set to Dolby Surround, 5.1 channels/Speakers play during test. The receiver outputs to Dolby Digital EX or PLX II depending how your receiver is set up. 7.2 channels/Speakers all play sound. With Stereo source like music, all 7.2 channels/speakers output sound. All speakers played providing a music surrounding environment.

So if you want to fully utilize your 7.1 AV Theater system and connected speakers. It's probably best to leave ATV4 to Dolby Surround. That way, even plain old Stereo Music can be processed by your receiver as DD PLXII Misic, DTS or any of the several choices your receiver provides.
 
happycadaver said:
Why not just use ethernet? I can't think of a better way to connect an ATV to my media library.
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It's capped at 10/100 MB/s. Too slow compared to the ATV4 WiFi AC with MIMO. I'm getting 5x the speed vs Ethernet on ATV4. :)
 
thisismyusername said:
What are you streaming that requires anything even close to 100Mb/S? Even 4K only requires about 1/5 to 1/4 of that.
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Local streaming. Three ATV at home. Multiple concurrent users at home all accessing the Internet, local media, music media, streaming through the ATV's, iOS and Macs. That's why ATV4 is a great replacement for all your old ATV's at home. Using WiFi AC and not Ethernet.
 
The ATV4 doesn't have gigabit ethernet? Back to the middle ages, if so.

Apart from that, my ATV3 doesn't have any problems with the 100mb connection and my local HD library; what are you trying to stream, untouched Blu-ray rips?
 
kagharaht said:
Local streaming. Three ATV at home. Multiple concurrent users at home all accessing the Internet, local media, music media, streaming.
Click to expand...
How many WiFi Access Points do you have? If only 1 all these devices will divide up your WiFi between all of your devices. If only 1 device taking all of the WiFi speed you can compare but with all these you may be better off using Ethernet for all of your stationary devices.
 
LOL you guys are funny. 100MB/s vs 600MB/s? Silly trying to push us to use Ethernet.
 
kagharaht said:
LOL you guys are funny. 100MB/s vs 600MB/s? Silly trying to push us to use Ethernet.
Click to expand...
It's hardly silly. A 10/100 connection will always be stable where the 802.11ac connection has many variables. It's great that at a specific time of day you could manage 600Mbs but that's best case.
 
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Gav2k said:
It's hardly silly. A 10/100 connection will always be stable where the 802.11ac connection has many variables. It's great that at a specific time of day you could manage 600Mbs but that's best case.
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Nope I get local steaming at 500-600 at home. Anytime. So it's silly to even think of using Ethernet. lol
 
kagharaht said:
LOL you guys are funny. 100MB/s vs 600MB/s? Silly trying to push us to use Ethernet.
Click to expand...
Whats funny is you just ignore valid questions. But, if you are happy with your setup then all is good.

1. How did you measure you speed with the Airport Utility. I understand how to measure you Internet Speed on the Apple TV but not sure how you measure your Network Speed. I use LAN Speed Test on my Mac Mini -> Macbook Air to test my LAN Performance.

2. And my question. Doesn't multiple devices streaming at the same time reduct the available WiFi Band Width whereas the Ethernet Connections would not in the same way.
 
Ethernet is better, at this point in time.

First, 100Mbps is plenty. If your local media is encoded higher than 100Mbps, then you're doing something very wrong. Currently, BR allows only 48Mbps rates maximum for AV, and that is considered the gold standard right now. Even when the 4k standard on BR is finalized, those files will be 50-60Mbps. If your encodings are higher, you're using space needlessly with no added benefit. Saturating a 100Mbps connection just means it is buffering - transferring the video file from server to ATV faster than real-time - it doesn't mean 100Mbps isn't enough.

Second, LAN has far less interference, which means it has far lower chance of a dropped connection. With wifi, neighbors signals interfere, others users on the same network interfere, security systems and pretty much anything else using the 5ghz band will interfere. Heck, even minor solar flares and weird e/m from nearby powerlines can interfere with wifi. With ethernet, almost no interference.

Third, even 100Mbps LAN has better latency than 802.11AC (though AC latency is very good still). As gamers know, latency matters more than total throughput when it comes to maintaining a solid time-sensitive connection. The same applies to streaming.

When streaming, my goal is not to download a file as fast as possible; as long as it downloads faster than the time it takes to view it (faster than real-time), that is all I want in terms of speed. My goal is that the download is smooth, uninterrupted, and begins immediately. LAN provides that better than WiFi.

That said, I do hope they add gigabit in the next revision. While 100Mbps works 100% fine, I just feel like I'm wasting my gigabit LAN setup :)

kagharaht said:
Local streaming. Three ATV at home. Multiple concurrent users at home all accessing the Internet, local media, music media, streaming through the ATV's, iOS and Macs. That's why ATV4 is a great replacement for all your old ATV's at home. Using WiFi AC and not Ethernet.
Click to expand...
More users doesn't tax the ATV more. Each ATV can only stream one thing at a time. More users taxes your server more. Not sure how ATV network speed is relevant to this.
 
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Wow you have me convinced. I'm going out to buy 200 feet of Ethernet 10/100 cable. Get a Ethernet HUB. Go up my attic. Drill some holes and hope to fish it through the walls to the first floor. Figure out how to get past the beam supports between the frames. Then I can run the cable across the floor or up against the baseboard to the entertainment system. Spend hours and hours to get this done and when finished have the 10/100 cable to ATV4. Hmmmmm maybe I can just pop the ATV4 anywhere in the house and just turn on WiFi ac and enjoy 600MB/s within minutes. I think I'll just stick to my WiFi ac for now. LOL :)
 
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