Apple TV Slow Downloads?

Posted December 27th, 2008 in Editorial, Movies, News by Eddie V.

Update – It seems as though at some point over the last 8 hours The Dark Knight finally became available as an HD rental through the Apple TV.

This is one of those times where I get to use this website for selfish reason, but, is anyone else experiencing a slow down with downloading movies from your Apple TV? A quick look at the Apple TV Discussion forums at apple.com tells me I am not alone. You can check out the discussion here.

So far I’ve noticed the slow down beginning on the 25th. I’ve tried to rent and download at least 3 movies and the wait time has been about 8-10 hours! Kind of defeats the purpose and convenience of the Apple TV don’t it? I’ve reset my box twice and I know my wireless network is operating just fine. Any ATVJ readers having the same issue?

By the way, where is The Dark Knight in HD? Even Hellboy II in HD isn’t listed with the rest of the HD titles, you have to do a general search to find it in HD.

http://mark.shropshires.net Shrop

Eddie,

I have had slow downloads. Started for me about a month ago. Close ot the last ATV update.

I am disappointed that Dark Knight isn’t available for rental yet. It says 12/26, but 12/16 will be over for me in 4 hours..

Thanks for all you do!

Shrop
George hans

Yeah it’s now 9:07 eastern us time and the dark knight is still not available for rent either in he or sd. Come on apple don’t dissapoint! Anyone know what time movies usually become available as rentals?
CHASH

I also noticed the screen and icon paints were very s-l-o-w starting yesterday. Probably a glut of downloaders have Apple’s servers runnin’ home to mama.
http://www.macgurulounge.com Matt

Obviously, if you’ve got a solid DVD collection, you’re not going to want to repurchase all of those movies and TV shows and wait for the slow downloads. If you want to start converting those discs into high quality videos that can be streamed to your Apple TV, you can do it with a combination of Handbrake and VLC. I wrote a tutorial at Mac Guru Lounge explaining step-by-step how to do this.
MNappletvuser

it is 10:20 AM CST on December 27th here in MN and still shows “available for rent 12/26″ on ATV and itunes. How frustrating that apple can’t seem to make the most anticipated movie of the year available when promised.
http://www.appletvjunkie.com Eddie V.

MNappletvuser, even after I saw it available as a rental on Apple TV I did notice that Apple had yet to update the notification in iTunes. But, if I were you I might try restarting your Apple TV or go into another section like TV Shows then back to Movies. Sometime this clears things out for me. Annoying I know.
Jeff

I’ve noticed this for about a month as well. It seems to fix itself after you restart, but that is very annoying.
Brian H.

I just bought some Heroes episodes in HD on my ATV, and it was taking forever for them to download. I’ve never noticed this before, since I usually buy in iTunes and sync to the ATV, but iTunes was downloading the same 3 episodes and their SD copies at the same time. Once I paused my iTunes downloads, the ATV downloads dramatically increased in speed.

Is this normal?
http://www.apple.com Sebastian

No Batman yet. I did the ‘search’ it showed as an HD title.
I restarted as someone suggested. It no longer showed as HD.
Are they selecting the markets for the release?
http://www.apple.com Sebastian

Yet, my iTunes shows it available for rent in HD on ATV.
http://www.apple.com Sebastian

Guys… iTunes in my Mac showed it available for rent (SD) a few minutes ago.
It showed as an HD title on a search on AppleTV, but then that went away after a warm restart.
Now it is not available in iTunes nor in AppleTV.

I’ve seen those VoD servers in a data center (not Apple’s) and if I am not being discriminated by originating IP my guess is that if you are streaming from my server farm and the movie is not replicated enough times or not available from a solid state drive, or whatever traffic reason at their data center or data handler…

I can not see it
matrix6028

anyone rented Dark Knight in HD yet?
http://www.redwindsoftware.com ConorW

I rented it on the 26th (Irish time though) in HD. Absolutely awesome. I’d seen the movie before anyway but its well worth a re-watch and in HD its simply brilliant. Had no speed issues with it or any other Apple TV downloads
matrix6028

Still not available on my AppleTV
http://Www.apple.com Sebastian

It is once again listed as an HD title in movie search. it is #12 in Top Rentals… But it is not available in my ATV nor iTunes
YodaMac

Same as above poster – TDK shows up under Search as an HD movie – but when you go to it there is NO RENTAL OPTION on the AppleTV or through iTunes.

Is there a phone number to call and complain? (or get a reason why?)
YodaMac

UPDATE: If I go into Customer Reviews for TDK – then a rental option appears at the top – but not HD, of course.
http://Www.apple.com Sebastian

Good question. The Apple website would be the place. I’m still thinking its gotta do with demand. Specially after xmas and being a box office grand slam.
One would think Apple wants all off us to see it through iTunes and brag about ATV eberywhere with friends and family. But then again, corporations have plenty incompetent middle management.
Eddie V.

Ok so this is for the ones who aren’t able to rent TDK.

If you go Movies>Top Movies then click on TDK banner at the top you are not presented with a rental option?
http://Www.apple.com Sebastian

No rental option on Top Movies & not even on Top Rentals where TDK is sitting at #10
Odin

I am not accusing anybody of anything here, I’m just pointing out an observation I made.

This is in iTunes and can be replicated on my apple tv.

A couple of weeks ago apple started IP filtering when they changed the T&C for the US store which reads that you won’t attempt to use the store from outside the US.

I have an ISP where the IP address used cannot be validated as US origin and one where it can. If I use the same system and same account on the one where the US is not validated than I can’t see the rent movie, but if I swap to the IP that can be validated as US than I can see rent.

I tested this several times, disconnected from valid IP, connected to the other and then hit rent just to get the pages refreshed without the rent option.

Looks like there is something going on at apple, I fear soon without a valid US IP address you can’t do anything, the same as with Amazon.
Ruben

I’ve been having the same problem since the 26th. Its gotten worse over the last few days. Now HD movie trailers are even stopping midway through playing.
tony

Movie downloads have been hellishly slow for me the last couple of weeks. It looks like I’m not the only one. I even tried switching out routers and calling my ISP. Of course, no solution. What is going on?
Terry

It’s Jan 9th and the problem is still occurring. This is crazy. There is widespread postings about this and Apple has done nothing for weeks. I tried downloading a movie and it’s been 3 hours and still hasn’t finished. I did everything possible (restored, updated, connected to wired instead of wireless, ISP speedtest, tested large downloads on my computers, etc) and everything points to this being an Apple problem. Poor service to not address this.
Phil

Same problem here…even downloading 23 min standard def tv shows. Happened around New Years and hasnt been the same. Tried rebooting etc to no avail. I am on wired connection too, used to play instantly.
Phil

But I did notice even if it had 5-10% it would not start stream playing like it used to. And the ‘Ready to play’ times kept increasing.

One weird workaround is going to:
1. Settings > Downloads >
2. Click on the file to Pause download,
3. then click the Resume on the same show/movie.

Seems to work and play but maybe its just me. I hope they fix this soon. Tell me if it works for you.
dana

This is absolutely ridiculous. I tried to rent and finally gave up and went to bed and it had a error message. I loved my apple tv….until now! 2 hours to download step brothers!
Marco

Hi! I recently started to experience very slugish interaction between my Apple TV and Itune store for the movies. The thumbnail don't load (well it does but take forever), same for the trailer it takes forever. I'm not sure about my wireless netwrok though since it reads Apple TV connect at 65% only…
Dominick P

My son tried downloading a rental movie today – 1st time since we purchased the AppleTV that we had an issue downloading anything (rentals/purchases). We are at the 2.5 hr. mark and looking at 57% downloaded. Usually able to start playing rentals in minutes, and we have never had a movie pause the way it did today. I'm hoping we haven't been just lucky to this point, as I already purchased a 2nd unit for upstairs.
mangrove

it seems as if the entire system has almost shut down – apple needs to address the problem – we cant all be suffering from “network” problems ( it takes 6+hours) I have resorted to downloading overnight to keep myself from screaming at the inconvenience of waiting
Dominick P

My son tried downloading a rental movie today – 1st time since we purchased the AppleTV that we had an issue downloading anything (rentals/purchases). We are at the 2.5 hr. mark and looking at 57% downloaded. Usually able to start playing rentals in minutes, and we have never had a movie pause the way it did today. I’m hoping we haven’t been just lucky to this point, as I already purchased a 2nd unit for upstairs.
mangrove

it seems as if the entire system has almost shut down – apple needs to address the problem – we cant all be suffering from “network” problems ( it takes 6+hours) I have resorted to downloading overnight to keep myself from screaming at the inconvenience of waiting
Anonymous

yeah mine says it will take 30 hours to download a movie. Lots of search results of people having this problem but no answers.

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