30 Days of AppleTV – Day 7


One thing that I’ve seen some complaints about online, particularly in the G4 Interview, relate to the AppleTV’s video streaming. I’ve seen complaints that it really doesn’t do a very good job, but I have to say, mine is working perfectly. In fact, I don’t think it could work any better than it does. Now, let me explain my set up a little first, and then you guys can tell me in the comments if I’m an idiot or not, but I’m using a Netgear cheap-o 801.11g router that I bought at Best Buy about a year ago. It was the cheapest one they had, and I was on a budget at the time, so I got it. It is in the same room as the AppleTV, and I’m streaming from my Macbook Pro.

It takes 10 to 20 seconds tops for a streaming show to load, and I haven’t noticed any lag what-so-ever while the program is running.

Now, I’m sure it’s different if everything is set up on the other side of the house, but for me, this is working great.

Are you having any streaming problems? If so — what’s your set up?


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

5 Comments

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  1. I’m on a wireless g network and shows and movies pre-buffer for no longer than 5 seconds and play smoothly after that. I almost don’t bother too much with syncing since streaming works so well.

  2. I’m also on a G network, with my Linksys WRT54G router upstairs and my AppleTV downstairs, and I have yet to have even a hiccup with streaming. It buffers very quickly and never stutters for me.

    This is also the case with very high quality videos that I’ve encoded. So far, I’m happy as a clam with the AppleTV, though there are certainly many improvements that could be forthcoming.

  3. I’m on a N network, and stream exclusively.

    Last Saturday nothing would play. It got to the point of the “24” intro pausing to cache every 4 second. Literally.

    I unplugged the unit, waited 5 seconds, plugged it back in. All’s been perfect since then.

    I’m expecting it to happen again eventually. When it does, I’m going to see if there’s a network connectiton I can toggle instead of unplugging it.

  4. I have synced the AppleTV with our MacBook in order to get all of our photos on there, but I stream all video from my PC in a room upstairs. The AppleTV box sits next to the 54g router, connected wirelessly, while the PC upstairs also connects to the router wirelessly.

    The AppleTV takes only a couple of seconds from clicking on the desired video to the video playing, and I’ve yet to experience any pause in video for buffering. I tend to watch h.264 1500 kbps 640×480 video files I’ve encoded myself from DVD source using Nero Recode 2.

  5. I just got my Apple TV and was I disappointed!

    Everything looks great, but getting it to appear in devices for iTunes, was a real hassle. You can’t buy and download movies directly to ATV; no, you have to download the movie to iTunes, then sync with ATV.

    So, in effect, you have to wait TWICE, once for the download and once to transfer it over to your ATV. What bs. This means you have to wait twice as long and download it twice, before you can even watch it.

    Plus Apple charges you 10% for restocking and you pay postage back, plus you have to have it back with a specific time period and no parcel post! Now, if you are an average Joe Blow idiot and want the hassle of ATV love affair with iTunes, while you wait and wait and wait for something to happen, then go for it.

    But, I’m not the village idiot, so I’m sending it back to AppleHell, where it came from and screw Jobs!