Is There a Technique for Improving Rental Movie Experience?

I attempted to watch “The American” on my 2nd Gen Apple TV two nights ago. I was told it would take four hours to be ready, so I just left it alone and did something else. Last evening I found that it was ready to watch, so I did. It was fine for the first hour, but during the second half it stopped three times for several minutes to re-buffer -- a very annoying experience for movie watching, particularly when one is paying for it.
My Apple TV is connected wirelessly to my home wireless system. My home system always measures in the 15 to 20 Mb speed range, and my router is a brand new Airport Extreme (2.4 and 5 bands simultaneously). My Apple TV shows four (out of five) bars on the system info part of the menu. When I run the Apple TV’s own network speed test, there is no indication of a problem there either (although some feedback one way or the other would be better).
So, is there a technique for making this better, using the 8GB of memory in the new Apple TV? Movie watching was always flawless with my old 1st Gen Apple TV because you could download the rental to its memory. Is there some tip which will allow me to do the same with this new 2nd Gen Apple TV?

Thanks to vazandrew for prompt response. Yes, that's the way I understand the situation too. I was just wondering if anyone knew how to make better use of the cache to store more of the movie so we could prevent stoppages.
Frankly, the 2nd Gen Apple TV is a step backword from Apple's "it just works" philosophy. Yes, one can experiment with direct ethernet connection, look for wireless interference, etc., but the old First Gen. Apple TV simply wasn't that finicky to get a good movie watching experience (I've owned one for 2 1/2 years). And best of all it is a wonderful house music box where I keep all of my music, control it with my iPhone or iPad app, and don't have to have my computer on to do it. The only thing it lacked was Netflix streaming which is also spotty from time to time.
I plan to suggest to Apple that they develop an "Apple TV Pro" or Apple TV II" that contains memory like the 1st Gen did, but solid state this time, and also allow Netflix and other internet streaming. Yes, it would cost somewhat more, but it would perform much better. I wonder if they will pay attention to my voice in the wilderness?

Similar Messages

  • Is there a fix for watching rental movies from itunes on my ipod touch 5th gen?

    is there a fix for watching rental movies from itunes on my ipod touch 5th gen?

    Huh?
    What is broken?
    Please explain.

  • TS3297 I have paid for a rental movie but cannot download it. It keeps saying there is a download error retry and I have been for an hour. There is nothing wrong with my internet connection

    I have paid for a rental movie but cannot download it. It keeps saying there is a download error retry and I have been for an hour. There is nothing wrong with my internet connection.How do I get it?

    There is nothing wrong with my internet connection.
    Is that a -50 error message, jolyn?
    If so, perhaps try the "Error -50," "-5000," "8003," "8008," or "-42023" section in the Specific Conditions and Alert Messages: (Mac OS X / Windows) section of the following document:
    iTunes: Advanced iTunes Store troubleshooting

  • Leaving room on Hard Disc for downloading Rental Movies.

    Using the Sync mode vs Streaming. How do you Sync music and playlists to the AppleTV and leave enough room for Rental Movie Downloans...need to save about 10 GB for HD movies.
    SUGGESTION: Seems like we need a selection on the Apple TV Summary page in iTunes which would allow us to specify the hard disc space to be kept vacant.
    Automatic mode and Custom mode fills the AppleTV to the brim.

    I have checked my settings. It appears that in either Custom Sync or Auto Sync, if you are syncing any music at all, the software will automatically fill in any unused hard disc with more music. The only way I can see to leave unused disk space is to not sync any music. Or, just not use syncing and use just Streaming by selecting "Add Shared iTunes Library" from the "Computers" area of the "Settings" screen on the Apple TV.
    Could you be more specific with suggestions?

  • It takes over an hour for the rental movies from itunes to download. is this normal?

    it takes over an hour to download. is this normal?

    Welcome to the Apple Community.
    That all depends on your internet service. 6 Mbps or better is recommended for HD rental content. 2.5 Mbps for SD. You can check your actual internet speed at speedtest.net.
    If you'd rather download SD content to avoid waits, you can change the type of content available by default in settings.

  • Is there a technique for restoring a missing app ie facetime to the ipad?

    Is there a method for restoring a missing app to the iPad?

    If it is not from the UAE, check your restrictions.
    Settings>General>Restrictions>FaceTime

  • Is there a fee for the rentals on netflix?

    I know there is a monthly fee to join netflix (7.99 a month) but is there a fee charged for every kids show, movie I rent on my apple tv?

    You're using US Netflix?
    Winston Churchill wrote:
    If it does, I haven't seen anything about it.

  • TS1702 restart a download for a rental movie??

    Rented a movie and the dowload was interrupted. WhenI go to the Videos it's there. But when I try to click on the cloud it says--you have already rented this but it hasn't been downloaded-- go to Downloads to manage your downloads.  Where is downloads?????????

    For what it's worth, I had an even worse experience. After downloading a huge amount of it, then restarting my browser, when I clicked the "resume download" icon it tossed out what I had downloaded so far and replaced it with a 2kb HTML file about how my session had expired.

  • HT1725 hey guys u charged me for this rental movie and couldn't see it ,because was a mistake when i was downloading what i need to do because i want my money back  thakns:Ivan

    i was rentin the movie men of black 3 and i couln't watch it because was a mistake on  the downloading

    These are user-to-user forums, you are not talking to Apple here.
    Try the 'report a problem' link from your purchase history : log into your account on your computer's iTunes via Store > View My Account (Store > View My Apple ID on iTunes 11) and you should then see a Purchase History section with a 'see all' link to the right of it ; click on that and you should see a list of your purchases ; find that rental and use the 'Report a Problem' link and fill in details about the problem (iTunes support should reply within, I think, 24 to 48 hours).

  • I'm trying to make a logo animate onto the screen - is there a technique for that?

    I'm editing a TV spot for a client and want to animate their logo, by making it "draw" itself onto the screen. Any recommendations for how to do that?

    depends on how the logo looks like and what kind of 'appearance' you want ...
    drop-dead-simple:
    use any paint.app which supports psd-layers (recommending Pixelmator …), 'split' the diff. elements into separate layers (needs perhaps some retouch) and fade in/move in each layer. (made that for some other request awhile ago : http://youtu.be/uEDjHtADYj8 )
    not-that-complicated:
    in Motion, matte tool, paint some lines, which cover the logo, use the write-on behavior... (thousands of tuts at YT ... )
    all-bells-and-whistles:
    use tools as Blender, Cinema4D or mObjects (=the 3D-plugin for Motion) to re-enact the logo in 3D, flying, tumbling, lens flares, chrome shine, fire balls, Hollywood!

  • HT1657 I have been charged for a rental movie and have not purchased it can someone else hack into my iTunes account?

    I have been invoiced for a movie that I haven't downloaded can you confirm when this was rented?

    These are user-to-user forums, you are not talking to Apple here.
    Have you checked the purchase history on your acocunt via the Store > View My Account (Store > View My Apple ID on iTunes 11) drop-down menu option on your computer's iTunes ? If you didn't rent it, and nobody else has access to your account, then you can contact iTunes support via this page : http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/ - click on Contact iTunes Store Support on the right-hand side of the page, then Purchases, Billing & Redemption

  • Are there any techniques for memorizing source code and its place ?

    I forget stuff quickly so I have to start everything over and over again . I'm fed up with this ! Please help me ! Thanks .

    Fed up with what?
    What the heck are you talking about?

  • Are there other options for renting and downloading movies?

    I have watched movies downloaded from Apple a couple of time, but I really don't like the iTunes interface - my main complaint is that there is no way to filter movies so that I can quickly scan for rentals. 
    I rarely watch any movie more than one time, so I have no interest in buying a movie - I only want to rent, and it is a huge waste of time to hunt through iTunes movies one by one to see if I can rent it or not.  It just not worth my time.
    I don't know if Apple plans to fix this shortcoming or not, but until then, are there other options for downloading rental movies to watch on my MacBook Pro or my iPad?  Online streaming is fine, and I use Netflix and others for that, but I would like to get movies to watch on airplanes and other places where I don't have an internet connection.
    Thanks

    Try NFS. SMB is for connecting to Windows servers.

  • Rental movie gone | USB/WLAN conflict?

    Hi there,
    I recently bought some rental movies via the iTunes store, downloading them to into my MacBook's iTunes.
    Then I transferred these movies to my iPad, using the USB-iPad-sync. This worked all fine.
    Some very few days later, I configured my iPad to be synced via WLAN, and did so. After WLAN syncing, the movies were gone without any trace.
    I bought them again (and was charged again), and transferred them to the iPad once again. All seemed to be fine.
    When I synced the iPad via cable again now, the movies were gone again.
    Obviously there seem to be some conflict trouble when syncing the iPad sometimes via WLAN, sometimes via USB, which causes rental movies to vanish into nothing. This would only be a minor problem, if you could just simply download them again (expecting the iTunes store of course automatically to know that you bought them just recently and hadn't yet started watching them). But instead, you are being carged once more for each try.
    Any idea how to handle this?

    I sent said router back to amazon for a refund and got a Medion router modem which works fine instead.

  • Cannot watch rental movies on iphone 3gs since downloading OS6

    Since downloading 0S6 on an iphone 3gs, I get the message "Cannot Open" for two rental movies, one of which I had watched half of and one which I had not watched at all. The time is now ticking away until expiry on both of them and I'm unable to watch them. I've tried a reset but that didn't work.
    I have rung up Apple UK twice and got two different operators, one in the UK and then one in the USA. Both seemed very isolated with no contact with other Apple Mac staff except through computer. One told me to contact iTunes support online (he gave me an url and then realized it was the American url and not for the UK) and the other gave me the same url and told me to contact iphone support online.
    Both times I was left waiting for an inordinately long length of time when I suspect the operators were dealing with other calls. In fact, I got the impression, rightly  or wrongly, that I was dealing with people who were working from their own homes with minimal training and support and who were being paid for the number of calls they took and, if  there was a call like me which didn't come up with a solution on the computer screen, they went on to other calls and left me hanging.
    I did manage to find the Apple UK support page on my own but when I tried to contact them the error message "Service Unavailable - DNS failure. The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later. Reference #11.7f2645f.1348163355.65fe47"
    https://expresslane.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action?locale=en_GB&caller=cup
    I haven't had to contact Apple UK for a year or so but I've never had such an awful, waste of time experience before with people who did not seemed at all trained or given the facilities to handle calls. Can somebody please help me on this or give me an email address for Apple Support UK?

    I believe the issue is that you have to be connected to the Internet (the iTunes Store) when you play the movie. I'm not sure if that's just when you initially start the movie or not. This is necessary, I'm assuming, to keep tabs on their time limits for viewing the movie once it's started. You could go to iTunes Store and scroll to the bottom and click on Terms of Use. It's all spelled out there under Rentals.

Maybe you are looking for