Quick Question on the Apple TV.

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Hey guys.

Im going to buy Apple TV at the end of the month, as im paying a fortune for sky movies and lovefilm combined, when Apple TV will cut the cost in half. With it being able to stream from my iMac and applestore.

The question is. Being with Sky, i only get 2-3mb connection. And im worried i will get streaming issues with it stopping every other minute trying to re-buffer.

Do these problems exist ? Anyone on the same sky connection as me, and still getting good connection with Apple TV.

Cheers.

~Joe.
 
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I havnt personally rented from iTunes as yet but have heard it will dl the movie to the 8bg flash in it and then play the movie from there. So it shouldnt need to buffer as such. . . . Mind you, the big problem here is it might take a while (and i have heard up to 2 hrs) to dl the movie first. This was with a 2mb/s connection.
Hopefully someone that has rented will drop in, but that is my take on it and what i have read from other members

Cheers
 
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I havnt personally rented from iTunes as yet but have heard it will dl the movie to the 8bg flash in it and then play the movie from there. So it shouldnt need to buffer as such. . . . Mind you, the big problem here is it might take a while (and i have heard up to 2 hrs) to dl the movie first. This was with a 2mb/s connection.
Hopefully someone that has rented will drop in, but that is my take on it and what i have read from other members

Cheers

Whats it like streaming films from the mac?

Cheers mate.
 
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I have rented 2 HD movies now and it works without problem.
Once I have selected the it shows that it is downloading. I would say it took only about 1 min - at the most 1 min 30 seconds.

The only thing I have noticed is when I press play, the movie starts and runs for a couple of minutes and then pauses while more of the movie "caches". What I have learned to do to solve this is the following. Once I press play to start the movie I immediately press pause for maybe two minutes and then press play again. This in allowing the stream to get ahead for me and I do not have any further issues.

I am running the Apple TV (2nd Gen) over a 802.11n WiFi Network. I have a really good cable package that allows me 16 GB download speed and 1 GB upload speed. But I am not sure that the Cable Connection is making that much difference as it can only download it as fast as the server sends it out and that is usually the bottle neck for most things.

Thankfully I have not had the "2 hour" problem that I have read about. One forum thread was suggesting that Apple TV did not like Google DNS or Open DNS and that you should use your local ISPs Domain.

DavidH
 
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I have rented 2 HD movies now and it works without problem.
Once I have selected the it shows that it is downloading. I would say it took only about 1 min - at the most 1 min 30 seconds.

The only thing I have noticed is when I press play, the movie starts and runs for a couple of minutes and then pauses while more of the movie "caches". What I have learned to do to solve this is the following. Once I press play to start the movie I immediately press pause for maybe two minutes and then press play again. This in allowing the stream to get ahead for me and I do not have any further issues.

I am running the Apple TV (2nd Gen) over a 802.11n WiFi Network. I have a really good cable package that allows me 16 GB download speed and 1 GB upload speed. But I am not sure that the Cable Connection is making that much difference as it can only download it as fast as the server sends it out and that is usually the bottle neck for most things.

Thankfully I have not had the "2 hour" problem that I have read about. One forum thread was suggesting that Apple TV did not like Google DNS or Open DNS and that you should use your local ISPs Domain.

DavidH

Thanks for the info mate. Its only £100.00 so if i get the TV and it is pants when renting films from the store, i will just use it to stream from my mac.

I was on a 20mb connection with Virgin, but because SKY tv is better i took the risk of loading 17mb. Sucks but worth it.

Rep added to you two.

Thanks for your help, by the month end i will let you know how i think about it.

~Joe.
 
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I have Apple TV2 and Sky. No problems watching a movie at 400 am but at the times when you want to watch, ie. the evening, my Sky broadband is so slow that I have resorted to browsing the web with my Blackberry tethered to my MacBook.

I am actively looking at other broadband suppliers as Sky is Awful.
 
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I have Apple TV2 and Sky. No problems watching a movie at 400 am but at the times when you want to watch, ie. the evening, my Sky broadband is so slow that I have resorted to browsing the web with my Blackberry tethered to my MacBook.

I am actively looking at other broadband suppliers as Sky is Awful.

Could understand why, as the OP stated having a 2-3mb dl isnt really great in this day and age . . . . .

Cant wait until FIOS is in my home town . . . Getting reports of the 1st bit laid in Tasmania and there getting 50mb/s + dl and movie in like 15 seconds :)

Can only wait i suppose
 
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Whats it like streaming films from the mac?

Cheers mate.

Streaming from Mac to ATV isn't impacted at all by your Internet speed. It's impacted by your network speed. For best results, you'll want to have an N WiFi network (at least G at a minimum)

If everything's wired with LAN cables, it will be fast enough also.
 
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Streaming from Mac to ATV isn't impacted at all by your Internet speed. It's impacted by your network speed. For best results, you'll want to have an N WiFi network (at least G at a minimum)

If everything's wired with LAN cables, it will be fast enough also.


Yep true. I have my local network on a G and NEVER once had lag, stop/start or stopping completely to catch up. It works flawlessly IMO

Going to rent from itunes store to check out The iTunes Only Extras on DVD's looks pretty cool if it works. Then again its probably only US people like usual
 
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Hi

I received the Apple TV for Christmas, but have not yet rented a movie from the iTunes store. I have, however, watched the HD trailers with my 6mb connection and have found that some of the trailers lag. There can be a 10-20 second pause while the trailer buffers, but this is dependant on the time of day. Evenings are worse, which is when you tend to sit and watch movies. The standard definition trailers stream with no problem, but suffer from slight motion jitter. The first thing I watched was an SD trailer and I thought "if this is the quality of the content, then it's going straight back to the shop". Fortunately, the HD content is quite different and surprisingly sharp.

There is a section in the settings menu where you can enter your broadband speed (if you are suffering from slow downloading) and the box performs a download test, but you do not see the results of this. I assume they are sent to Apple, and you are left none the wiser as to why you should bother doing this as you don't see any result.

As for watching movies from Mac or iPhone (Airplay) to Apple TV, this works a treat. Photos stream great and the transitions you can apply are really quite decent. If you have the latest iPhone or iPod touch, you can use this as a remote for Apple TV, which is great for searching for content on YouTube, rather than moving a curser across a keypad on the screen.

By the way, the HD content while only 720p is stunning on a 46" Panasonic plasma, better than some 1080i transmissions!
 
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Thanks and rep added to you guys, ill let you all know how it goes :)
 
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this is maybe a really stupid question BUT does Apple TV only stream stuff from iTunes or would it stream, say avi files I have been 'given' from others that are stored on my iMac. Currently I stream those from my iMac to my PS3, but am moving and am not sure if this will work as well wireless in the new place as say apple tv..... Any experience with the wifi range on apple tv too?
 
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At those speeds OP, you will probably be waiting an hour to 2 hours for a HD movie to buffer. SD should play almost instantly though and the quality is fine.

Easier in the long run to download the file to your Mac and stream it from there when you want. I have a download speed of approx 3.5Mb and it took an hour for a HD movie to be ready for viewing direct through the Apple TV.

The HD files, once downloaded onto my Mac or iPad, streams to Apple TV without any issues.
 
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this is maybe a really stupid question BUT does Apple TV only stream stuff from iTunes or would it stream, say avi files I have been 'given' from others that are stored on my iMac. Currently I stream those from my iMac to my PS3, but am moving and am not sure if this will work as well wireless in the new place as say apple tv..... Any experience with the wifi range on apple tv too?

It streams from iTunes. The ATV2 has some strict video requirements and your AVIs and other files would probably need to be converted to play on the ATV2.
 

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