Crap. My Apple TV was having problems again. I swapped cables and that didn't help. But trying a different HDMI port on the TV solved the problem. So the port on the TV is bad.

Wouldn't it be nice if things like that were easily replaced?

Computers (and TVs) today seem to have lost the FRU mindset again.

I once had a Sony TV that actually had slots like a computer.

Of course, they wanted a high price for the parts...

So I'm still having problems with my Apple TV dropping frames. Sometimes it's really bad, where every other frame gets dropped, so it's unwatchable at that point.

Rebooting the Apple TV will sometimes stop the frame-dropping for a half a day or so, and sometimes it does nothing. But the problem always comes back. Last night I managed to get things working perfectly by switching the Apple TV HDMI back the the original port. So it's not any particular port that's the problem.

So it's either the TV or the Apple TV. Or else, I've heard that certain combinations of HDMI devices don't play nice together, so maybe it's both.

So my theory is that the HDMI connection between the Apple TV and the TV starts out good, but somehow the connection gets corrupted or something. Forcing the TV to break the HDMI connection by switching the Apple TV to a different port (which then causes the TV to establish a new connection) seems to temporarily solve the problem.

Any thoughts? I'm not sure what to do. Get a new Apple TV? A new TV TV? If the problem is my Apple TV and my LG TV just aren't that compatible, replacing one or both might not fix things.

Is it dropping frames when streaming from the internet? Or playing files from your iTunes? Just wondering if it's the HDMI cable at all? Could it be a network issue? Or your iTunes library hard drive having glitches.

If not those things, Try moving the physical location of the Atv. Maybe something in your set up is pumping a lot of RFI, and it's playing badly with either the Atv or it's cables.

Also, if you are doing wifi, try connecting a hard line to the Atv.

Lastly, is the unit staying powered on? I wonder if your power supply might be dying, and winking enough to "drop frames" type of thing. It's a long shot. Doubt it's that. Just throwing theories out to help test all possibilities.

Is it dropping frames when streaming from the internet?

Yeah, the Apple TV does drop frames while streaming from the internet, so it's not just streaming from my iTunes library. (But it's not as bad.) I've noticed frames dropping on cable TV just once (the cable box also has an HDMI connection to my TV), and my Blue-Ray player (also with an HDMI connection) has never had a single problem dropping frames

Just wondering if it's the HDMI cable at all?

I've tried two different HDMI cables--doesn't seem to make a difference. Although I could buy and try a new one.

If not those things, Try moving the physical location of the Atv. Maybe something in your set up is pumping a lot of RFI, and it's playing badly with either the Atv or it's cables.

Yeah, the problem went away when I moved the HDMI cables away from a power cable. But then the problem came back. I'll look into that more.

Also, if you are doing wifi, try connecting a hard line to the Atv.

Maybe four months ago my Apple TV started having all sorts of WiFi problems (failing to connect, or losing the connection while the Apple TV was sleeping), so I switched to a hard line That helped, but the Apple TV was still having problems maintaining a hard line connection. Then suddenly that problem went away. (It's still on the hard line). Perhaps this issue is related--maybe it's all Apple TV network issues? Although the frame-dropping started before then. I also had frames dropped while connection an Apple laptop directly to the TV via HDMI, but I haven't tried this since getting my Apple TV.

Also, I had very few problems with dropped frames until I started buying iTunes video content at 1080p instead of 720p.

Lastly, is the unit staying powered on?

No, that's fine.

I wanna do more research and experimenting, but I'm thinking of replacing the Apple TV.

eta: I saw online that one should turn off the "send data to Apple" option on the Apple TV. I did that and the problem got much better. And then got bad again.

eta²: Apple TVs dropping frames seems to be a common problem, based on googling.

eta again: And some people have fixed this problem by changing settings on their TV. Which supports my theory it's both an Apple TV / TV TV problem--sometimes they just don't play well together.

I have three Apple TVs and whenever I have had issues with video it has been related to data streaming into the ATV, not the HDMI connection out of the ATV.

1080p video does eat up more bandwidth so if you have a bottleneck somewhere it would be much more present on 1080p files. What speed is your internet connection, and what speed is your internal network? I'm pretty solid on my machines but I'm running 100-120 Mb internet connection onto a 1000bT wired network and then a 5GHz 802.11n WiFi, so the bottlenecks have been ironed out. At one point I made sure I had a dedicated WiFi network for the home entertainment stuff since a large download could saturate my WiFi connection and ruin TV viewing.

Also, I had very few problems with dropped frames until I started buying iTunes video content at 1080p instead of 720p.

Silly question. Does your TV have native 1080 resolution? Maybe it's something in the conversion process? Also, I thought Atv only did 720? Maybe that's just the older model.

The original ATV2 is only 720p, I have one of those. The newer ones do 1080p.

What speed is your internet connection, and what speed is your internal network?

Internet was 26Mbps, recently upgraded to 51Mbps. I think my network is 100Mb, unless my Time Capsule and Apple TV support Gigabit ethernet.

whenever I have had issues with video it has been related to data streaming into the ATV, not the HDMI connection out of the ATV.

I'm not sure this is my problem, as frames get dropped even when my Apple TV has read and cached data far ahead of where it is in the content I'm watching. I'll look into this more when I get home.

Does your TV have native 1080 resolution?

Yes.

Also, I thought Atv only did 720? Maybe that's just the older model.

Newer ones like mine do 1080p.

x-posty

Do you have a computer monitor, or something else you can hook the Apple TV up to?