My first AppleTV experience STINKS!

[mallbritton]

The best advice I've heard is to buy the movie in advance and let it queue up. Not bad advice, but I'm just frustrated because my XBOX doesn't lag when watching movies and when I order a movie directly from my cable provider, it doesn't lag either.

I can't speak to the Xbox experience, since I've never used it but I can say comparing downloading and watching a Hi Def movie on TV and ordering a pay-per-view and watching it from cable isn't quite comparable. When you order that movie from your cable provider your cable box isn't downloading a file to a local hard drive, it is simply decoding a signal so you can watch it. The TV actually downloads a file to the local hard drive. So of course this will take more time than ordering a movie from cable.

As to the Xbox experience, are the movies you're downloading also Hi Def? If not, Standard Def movies will download and be ready to play must sooner than a Hi Def file and will not require as much buffering.

I suggest if you slightly modify your expectations, and your renting habits you'll be happier with the product.

Regards,
Michael

 

[kbunch]

FYI in India we have a speed up to 8Mbps

take it to arizona or some uncivilized places in USA

I am in Tucson Arizona, and we are civilized thank you very much. I have 12 MB Cox cable. I get 12 off peak and about 6-8 during peak. Best internet connection I have had yet. My HD movies take about 15 seconds to buffer enough to watch.

To the OP it is your internet connection that is the problem. Also unless you have internet speeds over 22 MB it does not matter if you go wireless G/N or even wired. Wireless G runs at 54 MB half duplexed. That means you get 22 MB for upload and 22 MB download. So unless your internet is faster then 22 MB your wireless does not matter.

Lets think of it this way. Your internet is your water pipe from the city. It can only carry so much volume. In your house if you have HUGE pipes (think eithernet) to carry the water it would not matter. You would still only get a trickle from the city.

 

[cohibadad]

interesting. xbox streams movies better than TV for you. I've done both and I had to wait longer for the xbox movie to say ready than TV. I've always rented HD on both. Something seems odd that's why I wonder if it is not your ISP as something to do with your network and the TV. Also keep in mind that if your TV is connected wirelessly and you are simultaneously using up your network wireless bandwidth with other devices it can severely effect streaming performance.

 

[mr_matalino]

FYI in India we have a speed up to 8Mbps

take it to arizona or some uncivilized places in USA

Excuse me. I live in AZ. I have 9Mbps. And that's not even the fastest connection they offer

 

[GoCubsGo]

snip
I've come to expect more out of Apple as a switcher from the Windows world. I was disappointed. Nothing personal folks...

Yes but as a switcher you expect Apple to somehow change something that they don't even control. I don't want to sound like a fan-girl here but it is the truth. If you step back for a second you'll realize Apple isn't the be-all-end-all and in the end they cannot control the cable company...yet.

 

[dejo]

Wingnut330, it would better help those trying to respond if you posted some speed test times for your connection, particularly those taken at times where you would like to be downloading your movie (e.g. Saturday at 10PM). Since you are on a cable connection, you are sharing your bandwidth with your neighbors. If they're using a lot of the bandwidth at the same time, you cannot expect download speeds to be that good. Could you run a speed test and let us know the results? Thanks.

 

[gnasher729]

What does this have to do with AppleTV? It's obvious that there are a lot of things that can affect the download of large files. When you have a cable internet connection, you are sharing bandwidth with your neighbors. It could be that the AppleTV tells you it's okay to start watching, then one of your neighbors starts downloading some large files (NetFlix perhaps) and your connection slows after you get started. Also, if you're using a wireless connection, there could be occasional interference causing some issues.

It may not even be the bandwidth sharing, at home it may happen that your ISP slows down your download speed. Lets say an HD movie is 4 GB. You start downloading, and the Apple TV thinks the download speed is plenty to start viewing immediately. Then after 1 GB and a quarter of the movie, your ISP decides that what you pay them doesn't entitle you to download 4 GB at high speed, so from then on the download goes at half speed. Nothing that Apple can do there.

(I am told that some ISPs in Britain sell for example 8MBit/second access, but after a few hundred megabytes it goes down to 1MBit/second for the rest of the day).

 

[megfilmworks]

Wow - some of you folks are sensitive about this and downright nasty. I guess emotion shows passion...some of you are very passionate about your technology.

I think the reactions you are getting have to do with the title of your thread.
Capitalizing stink, blaming ATV and generally not having a clue.
If you were just asking a question or looking for responses you would be better off with a legitimate thread title.

 

[mchalebk]

Very very disappointed in this product.

It's not just the title, it's the content of the original post. If you started a thread saying "How come I can't watch without pausing" you'd get a much different reaction. People want to help, but they can get testy when they feel blame is being cast where it doesn't belong.

 

[aross99]

I have rented 4-5 HD movies now, and each one started about a minute or two after I purchased it. I have a standard 6MB Comcast connection, and 802.11n on the AEBS.

It is pretty clear that you need a consistant connection around this speed before you can reliably watch HD movies right away. Alot of people seem to have slower DSL connections (less than 2MB) and they seem to have to wait.

 

[Wingnut330]

I have rented 4-5 HD movies now, and each one started about a minute or two after I purchased it. I have a standard 6MB Comcast connection, and 802.11n on the AEBS.

It is pretty clear that you need a consistant connection around this speed before you can reliably watch HD movies right away. Alot of people seem to have slower DSL connections (less than 2MB) and they seem to have to wait.

Yup. Let's close this case, shall we???

 

[MikieMikie]

Fair points, but it's disappointing nonetheless. It's simple really, disapointment comes when your expecations aren't met. Mine weren't - regardless of where the problem lies, mine weren't met. I've come to expect more out of Apple as a switcher from the Windows world. I was disappointed. Nothing personal folks...

I completely understand your frustration. With your experience as a teacher, I will continue to rent but will wait until it has completely downloaded before starting to watch.

I am rarely disappointed by Apple's products, and I have happily spent many hard-earned dollars on their products. I'm afraid that, for me, both Leopard and Take 2 have been more trouble than they're worth.

As long as I am careful in managing my expectations, my Apple TV will still continue to serve me well. When I start to believe The Steve's hype, however, I get disappointed -- reality rarely matches his zeal.

 

[saltyzoo]

Could be the network, but I pay for roadrunner cable services, so comparing that ti 56K is a bit of a stretch...

Tell your neighbor to stop downloading porn while you are trying to watch a movie.

cable modem users share bandwidth with other local users. During peak times you aren't going to be able to download fast enough to watch a streamed movie.

Buy it and give it 30 min before watching. Pop some popcorn, take a shower. Read a book.

 

[whynot83706]

Are you on an "N" network? I had it on a wireless G network and had those problems, but a simple purchase of an AEBS changed all of that. I found out that if you got the message that the movie was ready, if you waited a little while longer I didn't have any stops.

I have a question, is there going to be an significant transfer speed upgrade when going from my Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router to the Time Capsule? and I know it depends on my Net speed...but I am just trying to see if is worth spending money for going from the perfectly working G eouter to the N router....

 

[jim.arrows]

I have a question, is there going to be an significant transfer speed upgrade when going from my Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router to the Time Capsule? and I know it depends on my Net speed...but I am just trying to see if is worth spending money for going from the perfectly working G eouter to the N router....

Sync'ing from your iMac to the aTV will be faster, but you probably won't notice a difference downloading from iTS (unless you have Fios or Comcast Blast that can actually saturate your wireless connection speed). So the answer to your question, as always, it depends.

 

[Wingnut330]

For those of you asking that I test my connection, here are my results from www.speedtest.net...

Download: 6751 kb/s
Upload: 476 kb/s

 

[saltyzoo]

For those of you asking that I test my connection, here are my results from www.speedtest.net...

Download: 6751 kb/s
Upload: 476 kb/s

Doesn't mean much now. You would need to test it when you are having problems. As I said above, you're sharing bandwidth so if people in your neighborhood are idle, you're bandwidth will be higher.

 

[TallManNY]

Try five or 10 minutes of buffer. That should be plenty to get you through. Maybe add a five minute intermission in the middle while you get beverages and make a pit stop.

Downloading the whole movie beforehand kind of defeats part of the purpose of AppleTV. Maybe some movies are "must see" to you, but when you are sharing your viewing with your wife, she may have different desires. There is only so much room on the 40GB ATV, so you will have to make some choices. Especially if you put your music and some pictures on there an they use up space.

I've liked my experience so far. I've downloaded ahead of time and done standard movies on a straight stream. But the HDs I always give at least ten minutes of buffer. I just don't trust my internet connection.

My biggest problem is that the selection of movies is more limited than I thought it was going to be. Or at least it isn't growing at quite the pace that I thought it would (or that was Apple's goal). But since I don't subscribe to cable television, this is the best thing I've got to a ready video source on my TV (or should I say, hi-def projector (we are on a geek site, so got to give props to the toys)).