Does Apple TV latest generation keep movies it watched?

[romanof]

A question about the Apple TV box, the latest one, bought a few weeks ago. (It will be obvious that I am not a TV person. If I need to waste my time, I choose other pursuits.)

When a movie is selected to be watched from Apple TV+, does it load the whole movie into the box, then keep it? So, if you choose to watch it again, the stream isn't coming down the Internet pipe, but just being played from within?

All I have to go on is the lights on the router, and they seem fairly placid on a rerun.

I ask for the reason of bandwidth, and if her kids watch the same thing over and over, is the data toll only paid once, or every time?

The Wiki doesn't really give explanation of this.

Thanks.

 

[Bigwaff]

When a movie is selected to be watched from Apple TV+, does it load the whole movie into the box, then keep it?

No, it is streamed. There is some data caching but the entire data file is not stored on the Apple TV device.

 

[StumpyBloke]

All streamed.

Edit: as said above mine.

 

[romanof]

Ok. Thanks for the info.

 

[romanof]

Ok, if you all say it is only streamed, I certainly can't say other. But I played with it while I was there and I noticed this...

If you fast forward in a movie that has never been played on the device, it will give the rotating busy indicator until it catches up, over and over. Almost every use of the fast forward gives a busy.

But... If the movie has been watched, you can whip back and forth with no pause just like you were in a DVD player. You can even watch another episode, then come back to the first and fast forward and rewind at full tilt.

That is a lot of just "some data caching."

???

 

[Edd70]

How many times have you performed this experiment? Like the others, I agree it’s streamed every time.

For super clarity, you’re not purchasing any of these films right? The are films available on the Apple TV + streaming service?

 

[romanof]

Several times. No purchase. Just a subscription to ATV+ I was watching MofA several times over the week.

I am not at the place of the Tv box now. (not mine). But, I used it to watch the new Masters of the Air or whatever it is called. On the first watch of an episode, sometimes I would miss the skip box before it went away, and if I fast forwarded then it would get the rotating dot circle until it caught up.

But... Later when I wanted to watch an episode again (a day later, two, three days later), I could just zoom forward and backward without pause. I can't argue about claims that it only streams or no because I know nothing about it, but again, that is a lot of cacheing in my opinion.

 

[Edd70]

I suppose the best test is to pull the ethernet cable while watching one of each type of show (previously watched and unwatched) and see how long it takes to stop. If your ATV is the WiFi only version, pull the cable from your router.

 

[Bigwaff]

Without a clear understanding of the streaming VOD protocol Apple is using, you are just speculating. Thinking the entire video at high resolution is streamed when scrubbing and scanning is naive. The protocol defines different segments, one of which is a playlist of thumbnail images of content. This is what you see when you scrub, i.e. fast forward or rewind. There’s a lot going on with the client software and the protocol between it and the streaming service servers. It’s not simply downloading a big, fat video file.