Why Your 1080p and 4K movies run slow. A Sad Discovery

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This is you:

Decent computer with 16gb+ of ram
2000 movies in your library
Most of them 1080p. (Slowly purging/replacing 720p)
You’re exploring 4k because your computer can handle it and you added more ram.
Plenty of hard drive space

But no matter what you have, some of your movies are buffering and skipping.

In fact, you can swear there are days the same movie DID NOT skip just the other day.

Why is it skipping now?

You play with all the settings. Ultra fast, very fast, make your CPU hurt, For speed, for quality, temp folders, etc,. Yadda, yadda, yadda. You’re direct playing all your films. Transposing sucks most times because you just want the quality plus you feel: why the hell should you transpose a film when you got decent power. Maybe not for 4k, but damn well sure for 1080p.

You earned it. You’re not a 720p mofo anymore.

In fact, one day, you managed to view your 4K film and it played without skipping! Then the next, it’s skipping like crazy and you didn’t change a damn thing.

Is it your computer?
Was it the Roku?
Was it the Apple TV?
Was it your Plex settings?

You’re going crazy because there’s no excuse for the buffering and the counting to 99% and waiting and the “Your network is to slow to convert …” yadda, yadda, yadda.

Friends, I might have the solution and it’s your router.

This is how it went down for me:

I’ve been having issues with Plex and buffering with some films forever. So, with the pandemic and being in the house more often, I splurged. New computer, 32gb of ram and all sorts of terabytes.

I also bought an Apple TV 4K and the first thing I did was set the network up to my Wifi’s 5Ghz. All my good stuff is connected to the 5Ghz and it’s not a lot. In my head, I’m thinking the home theater needs to be 5Ghz. My laptop needs to be 5Ghz. Everything else on the regular 2.4Ghz.

In my head, of course I’m trying to watch 4K and the wireless needs to be on the best setting, right?

So, on the first day of the Apple TV setup, everything was perfect. No skipping on my most notoriously known films that skipped with the endless pausing and loading.

Great.

Next day, suddenly my 4K movies won’t load. The movie “Prometheus” stops 7 minutes in at the same part all the time and says the system is not strong enough to view. Everything is a sudden mess.

Checking Apple TV settings, whereas I thought I had Wireless 5Ghz, it was on the 2.4Ghz suddenly.

I have the same password for them both, so I’m not surprised. Apple TV suddenly would NOT access 5Ghz, telling me the password was wrong for some reason when I know it was right. Again, same password for 2.4Ghz.

I search everywhere online about why AppleTV is giving me trouble and it turns out it will deny a weak internet setting if the signal isn’t strong enough. I know. I didn’t appreciate it auto failing my options. But here’s the point of it all…

The wifi 2.4G played all my movies flawlessly. Even as we speak, I’m watching “Spies in Disguise” 4K with no issues. None. Under 2.4Ghz wireless. Direct Play. Watching Prometheus and it played past the first 7 minutes without error.

Conclusion/Theories: My router (Netgear Nighthawk R7000 ) has a failing 5Ghz transmitter. When I look into other devices around the house, like my laptop, it will temporarily connect to my 5Ghz, fail and auto connect to my regular 2.4Ghz. Something I never noticed until now.

Keeping the AppleTV locked on 2.4Ghz, I’m able to watch all of my 4K movies. All the 1080p movies that notoriously buffered in my collection and my viewing performance enhanced.

Now I’m questioning if I even need to go 5Ghz. I can’t see any quality degrading. No speed issues. Sometimes our expectations of what we need aren’t as necessary as we think.

Well, that depends on the topic. lol. I want my 4K and I’ll notice the visual quality differences.

But for wifi? I suppose if I was in a location where distance was an issue or how the signal has to go through certain walls, that sort of thing…yeah, maybe the difference will matter.

Something to consider when you’re busy wondering whats wrong. I NEVER considered my router as the problem until now.

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Wow… that post definitely deserves a TL;DR summary.
There’s a guide on how to overcome obstacles of 4K.

To be super open – playing 4K over WIFI is definitely going to be a gamble in any setup. At least if you’re dealing with a halfway decent bitrate. There’s way too many roadblocks and and pitfalls when it comes to WIFI playback… that’s by the way not specific to 4K but can already happen with Blu-Ray quality 1080p content.

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Good catch and thanks for sharing. I’ve had cheap consumer grade routers fail on me also. I’m sure people will benefit from the story.

One if the morals of the story: If you don’t know how to validate each piece of a system separately you’re going to have a very hard time making it work.

Regarding 2.4 vs 5ghz, 5 won’t necessarily get you better performance just because the number is bigger. There are a lot of variables involved and I’ve seen more than a few installations go with 2.4 because the operating environment yields better results that way. Sounds like you’re good to go.

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There may not be anything wrong with your router at all. it’s possible it’s just your environment that is the problem.

Wifi at 5Ghz will generally transmit further and have a faster throughput, provided there is minimal to nothing between the router and your device. The 5Ghz band is VERY susceptible to your environment; it does not like solid objects. The higher frequency is severely attenuated by things in it’s signal path (walls, doors, glass, furniture, etc.). The 2.4GHz frequency is MUCH less affected by such things and thus will work much better for a typical home user. For 5GHz to be at it’s best, it would need to be used in a large open space.

That being said, if you are looking at 4K video, your best bet would be use a wired connection. Not that WiFi won’t work, but it does take a tole on your router, and would severely limit the number of device that could simultaneously utilize that WiFi connection before the transmitter in your router would be fully saturated.

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