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Apple TV2 and iTunes Rentals

Hey Gary I wanted to ask you since I know you have the new Apple TV(or I suppose), but first let me say that I also own a first generation Apple TV and when I would rent a standard def movie from iTunes it would generally take around 45min to an hour which was OK with me because of my 1.5MB download speed. So my family and I were OK by it. But now with the new Apple TV when I rent a standard def movie, my “time to watch” has tripled, sometimes saying 3 to 4 hours or longer and “really” taking that long. And the forums prove that I am not alone!
Ok so clearly there is a download issue but here is my other issue. The other day I rented the movie Town. Like alway it said 3 to 4 hours. I checked back hours later and it said that the movie was ready to watch but by this time I was not ready to watch it so I declined. The next day when I went to go watch the movie and press play, to my surprise the movie began to download ALL OVER again!! Now I know the first generation had internal storage, and the new has 8GB of flash memory, but clearly 8GB is enough to cache the memory that has “already” been downloaded and when ready to watch at a later time continue the download as the movie is playing. I mean why would Apple even give you an option to watch later if they are going to make you re download the movie all over again! Are you having similar issues or anyone on the forum?
—–
Michael

Comments: 9 Responses to “Apple TV2 and iTunes Rentals”

    13 years ago

    I'm not having those sorts of issues with mine. But my connection is much faster than 1.5MB -- I'm at 20MB (10MB realistically).
    I wonder if the new Apple TV downloads higher quality files than the old one, which might account for the difference.

    Michael
    13 years ago

    That is true and could be why so many people are noticing longer downloads, but on the forums there are cases where downloads as fast as yours are having similar issues. This can also be contributed to DNS servers, but what of the re-downloading once you decline to watch at that time? Where I live the max is 1.5 and I would graciously pay twice as much for twice the speed and like myself there are many with "slower" connections. Wouldn't you think that the device would cache what it has already downloaded?

      13 years ago

      I agree that it should cache it. Not sure why it isn't. A bug maybe? Some sort of copyright licensing issue with storing the movie for a period of time?

    Michael
    13 years ago

    Yea but strange that the old Apple TV allowed you transfer rentals back and forth between device and computer. So not sure about copyright, maybe bug. I am hearing some going as far as to rent on a iPad and than Air Play it to the Apple TV:) Talk about your work-a-round. Anyway thanks for your reply and allowing me to get my comments out on the internet.
    Are you going to Macworld? This will be my first time. Looking forward. Maybe I will see you there!

    Ian
    13 years ago

    I am a Custom A/V Senior Technician and have installed two of the new Apple TV 2 units in the last 2 weeks, and in both instances the clients are experiencing huge download times. For example, taking 15 hours or more to download an HD movie to the point where they can watch it. Both clients are on DSL with a speed of around 5.2 Mb/s down. I too have scoured the web looking for an answer, and have seen solutions ranging from DNS, to bandwith speed, to a bottleneck on Apple's end, to a firmware issue. Any solid and confirmed news/reason for this would be a very helpful thing to pass onto your listeners, I think. Thanks for putting on a great show, I watch/listen every week.

    Jeff Shein
    13 years ago

    Very frustrated with my new 2nd gen Apple TV. The download times are huge. I have the newest Cisco router and a high speed connection. Apple support blamed it on my cable modem but this is nonsense as my home wi fi connection is solid and fast. Will hooking the unit up to an Ethernet connection help or do I just return this thing?
    P.S. My first Apple TV worked fine.

      13 years ago

      Try the ethernet cable. You never know. It would help rule out wifi issues. Report back what happens.

    Mel lyons
    13 years ago

    My wife and I had the same problem and we finally switched back to our cable on demand for the movie. We would love to hear a solution to both problems

    malcolmm
    13 years ago

    I have mine connected over ethernet and I have the same issues - 13 hour download times. I've rented three movies and haven't seen any of them yet. This really does seem to be an apple issue - I know what my connection is and I'd estimate a HD movie to take 1-2 hours to download depending on the time of day.

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