“Several discussion threads on Apple’s support forums related to issues with HD rentals not loading and HDMI connectivity problems have reached hundreds of posts in length as increasing numbers of Apple TV owners report having trouble with the device,” Ong reports.
“Some users report that Apple TV displays HD rental wait times of hundreds of minutes, while other video, such as trailers, HD Netflix movies, and YouTube begin playing after just a few minutes,” Ong reports.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple TV 2nd-gen owners? Are you seeing either of these issues? We are not seeing either with our 2nd-gen (or our 1st-gen) Apple TVs.
I have experienced very long waits for both HD and standard rentals. HD can take an hour to load enough data to start the movie. Standard can take upwards of an hour also. I have never rented from Apple that it did not take at least 30 minutes before there was enough data to stream. I am on Verizon FIOS and the download speeds are over 25Mbps.
It is safe to say that my rental rate is not very high because of this.
@Pocketrash,
I had the same problem with Netflix. I just reset my ATV2 and all became available.
I have had no other problems with my Apple TV-2
Isn’t this really the Apple TV 3G? I mean, we count every new release of the iPhone as a new gen. Apple TV had at least 2 previos version from what I can remember before this little box.
ATV 2 here is losing HDMI connection completely — no longer sees the ATV at all, even after restart of TV and ATV.
Hope Apple gets on top of this — the “hobby” is starting to unravel.
Since the 4.2 update I get nothing but hdcp hdmi errors regardless of cable or port. Funny thing is both cables and ports work fine with my Mac. I’m quickly getting tired of this hobby. Time for a proven product like the Roku.
We just got our box, and it’s unusable for watching rental movies or TV shows, unless one is willing to wait 2-3 hours for download. The box needs to be on a dedicated power line and cannot be turned off at any point in the download (we dislike having to have equipment turned on all the time – this box is going to have to be put on a separate switch from all the other electronics in that area of the house, else we lose what we downloaded the day before).
The box is pointless as a point of purchase rental item, it is good for Netflix and Youtube, but Itunes rentals needed to be downloaded to my iPad and planned for a day or two in advance.
Yes, it’s safe to say we don’t rent nearly as much as we would, were it actually a faster service. We wait 30 minutes minimum for one thing to be ready to start, watch it, then have to wait 30-60 minutes (or longer) for the next thing.