BBC I-Player quality 29 July 2022 at 9:11PM in Praise, vent & warnings 7 replies 420 views

Marvel1

Streaming the commonwealth games and the quality of the video starts great then just drops - my speed is great - never have a problem on any other streaming site, but I-Player blimey and the most expensive streaming package of them all!

Murphybear

We are watching the Commonwealth Games on iPlayer, no problems so far.

Which streaming package do you mean, iPlayer is free.  

Manxman_in_exile

I find the picture and sound quality of the live streaming of the Games on iPlayer to be pretty poor.  But if you watch it later on catchup the quality is usually greatly improved and is OK.

The main problems with live viewing are intermittent freezing (or buffering?) of sound and vision and very grainy picture quality which usually improves .  I also find that if I'm watching the live streaming on full screen that sound and vision momentarily drop out every 30 secs or so.  That fixes itself if I revert to the "normal" sized iPlayer screen.

Mind you there are/were 11 live streams simultaneously available on iPlayer today, and at any one time I had at least 4 open.  I'm not sure if that contributes to the problems or not.  It's not a recent problem.  I first noticed it watching multiple windows during the Olympics last year, the winter Olympics earler this year, and last weeks World Athletcis championships.

The Beeb's coverage has been rather poor so far and their list of what's on is equally unhelpful.  This is their "daily guide" to coverage:

Commonwealth Games 2022: BBC TV times, radio listings and extra online streams of every session - BBC Sport

I don't understand the point of knowing when the Beeb will be broadcasting coverage if they don't tell you what they'll be covering.  You still have to search the live streams to find the sports the BBC can't be bothered to cover properly.  (Ironically, in the weightlifting they have two far better than average - for the BBC - commentators in Michaela Breeze and David Goldstrum, but try and find them on the main channels... )

Oh - and I watched England men against Ghana men in the hockey yesterday.  The commentary was squirmingly patronising and condescending towards the African team.  The commentators couldn't hide their amazement that Ghana had managed to put together a penalty corner play.  Who would have belived it.  For one of the most "woke" organisations in the country, the BBC's sports coverage is uncomfortably chauvinistic and one-sided.

daveyjp

Have to agree.  Poor quality, glitchy, pixelated.  And this from a cabled 300 meg cable connection to the TV.

However no issues whatsoever to ipad!

I also agree that finding details of what will be shown live is impossible. Not found any squash coverage yet.  As Sky say 'its only live once'.

p00hsticks

Murphybear said:

Which streaming package do you mean, iPlayer is free.  

Only free to watch live if you already have a TV licence....

sheramber

p00hsticks said:

Murphybear said:

Which streaming package do you mean, iPlayer is free.  

Only free to watch live if you already have a TV licence....

or catch up
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/bbc-iplayer-and-the-tv-licence#:~:text=Yes.,to any device you use.

You must be covered by a TV Licence to download or watch BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer – live, catch up or on demand. This applies to any device and provider you use.

Norman_Castle

Is the problem the amount of people using this stream? Apparently 1 billion people expected to watch the opening ceremony, I suspect there would be equally high numbers watching online.

Marvel1

Murphybear said:

We are watching the Commonwealth Games on iPlayer, no problems so far.

Which streaming package do you mean, iPlayer is free.  

I had to pay for a TV licence so not free.