This topic

Stuck on 720p

Popeye13_Official — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 13:47:02 GMT

BT SPORT on my FireTV stick seems to be topping out at 720p50 and won't go to 1080p50.

I'm not having this issue anywhere else on other services (Now, Netflix ect) which are all running 1080p50 and 2160p24 straight away. Any known issues, or fixes I can run?

(Stick is the latest FireTV 4K and set to match framerate with 2160p output enabled)

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 08:56:44 GMT

When we launched BT Sport on Fire TV, we found that some devices were maxing out CPU on the 1080p50 stream (even though they should be capable of supporting it), causing jittery picture. We therefore capped the HD stream to 720p50.
I'm not sure if that cap is still there - I've asked the team to check, and see if we can restrict the cap to just affected device models.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Popeye13_Official — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 11:54:35 GMT

Makes perfect sense and i appreciate your time in replying.

Hopefully at some point, the cap is released. I take it Ultimate isn't an option for FireTV at the moment?

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 12:04:58 GMT

Ultimate is already available without cap (when the event is on Ultimate) - it's only the HD streams that are affected.

Re: Stuck on 720p

j154822 — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 09:09:29 GMT

I know this is an older thread, but I wanted to chime in on this, this issue is not just effecting fire TV sticks it's also effecting the fire TV cube 2nd like the OP I am also capped at 720/50 despite the fact that the box i more than capable of streaming at 4k 60. The cube itself is able to play btsports ultimate UHD perfectly at 60fps which makes it even more ridiculous that you're saying that the firetv device can have to be capped at 720/50 due to the CPU, please fix this as soon as possible thanks I certainly would not say that this issue is solved

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 16:54:12 GMT

Indeed. I’ve got the Fire Stick 4K and BT Sport Ultimate does look beautiful on that. I have mine set at 50fps though which looks better than 60fps. From my side of the counter I’m also bound to say that I also watch Sky Sports via the Now app on there and they’ve got it running at 1080/50 with the Boost and it really does look excellent.

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 16:59:20 GMT

I would definitely recommend leaving your device configured with resolution: automatic. This allows the app to decide what resolution and refresh rate to use based on the content - e.g. forcing it to 60Hz will cause BT Sport (with it's 25/50fps content) to jump a lot. With it set to automatic, the app will switch to the highest supported resolution that supports 50fps.

As for removing the 720p cap on Amazon devices - this will come in our next app update, coming very soon.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 20:00:28 GMT

I’m now getting the BT Sport channels on my Fire tv Stick 4K with 1080p @ 50fps. Thanks guys.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 09:56:54 GMT

I have to make an observation on this since it was changed to 1080p/50fps. The best picture quality on the BT Sport channels is now undoubtedly obtained by setting the display to 1080p 50 hz rather than automatic. The same is also true on the Sky Sports channels which have been available at this resolution for much longer. The picture is not entirely smooth by setting it to automatic. This is my opinion on my Fire TV stick 4K. I would change the setting to automatic if I was going to watch something on BT Sport Ultimate rather then just HD.

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 10:14:12 GMT

An interesting observation @Brucemeister5 - that suggests that your device is struggling with the upscaling to 4k, but it really shouldn't.

The only alternative we have is to auto switch resolution each time a video is started (switching to 720p25/1080p50/2160p50 depending on the content), but this causes black screens on most TVs which is a poor experience. Thus we switch to the highest to cater for all content.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 10:29:47 GMT

I’m very happy with it though. I have no problems watching BT Sport Ultimate when I need it. I just make sure I’m on automatic. In my opinion the best PQ for HD is obtained by using 1080p 50hz. The same has been the case with Sky Sports on the same device. The PQ looks crisper and brighter in both cases. My BT Sport Ultimate is also excellent.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:04:59 GMT

I only seem to be getting c35-38fps on my Fire tv 4K stick on the BT Sport channels at the moment. I first noticed it on the live cricket last night, and it’s still the same this morning. I’ve got a full house of green ticks on my device checker and also tried altering the display settings.

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:10:25 GMT

BT Sport is broadcast in 25fps at lower quality and 50fps at the higher bitrates. What are you using to measure frame rate?

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:13:43 GMT

My remote control to get into the developer menu as I was instructed on the trial last summer.

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:22:57 GMT

Ok. I can only assume your bandwidth is on the cusp of 50fps, so it's switching up and down, causing a strange average.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:41:38 GMT

Ok, I don’t pretend to understand how these things work, but I’m still getting 50fps on the Sky Sports channels which are now all @ 50fps since 15th July. I can only assume that the BT Sport live channels have a different configuration on the Fire TV stick.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 11:53:32 GMT

I’ve just reverted to my NOW(tv) stick and the BT Sport channels all look superb on there. This is obviously an issue which is specific to the Fire TV stick. I don’t know when the next live sport is due to be on BT Sport Ultimate, but I’ll need to see what happens then.

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 11:07:53 GMT

@Brucemeister5 send me a DM with your BT ID and I'll check the stats

Re: Stuck on 720p

DarrenDev — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 19:08:43 GMT

OK, so an update on this one: it's driving me crazy!

I've been trying different options all afternoon, however the Amazon Fire Stick 4K 1st gen that I have has proven that it's just not capable of suitably playing our regular (non-Ultimate) content at 1080p50.

The secure AVC decoder on the device cannot keep up, and drops a LOT frames. Forcing it to use either the insecure AVC decoder or the Google software decoder fixes the issue with dropped frames, but then lip sync becomes really bad.

I've got a few more things to try, but as things stand we may end up needing to re-introduce the 720p50 cap for this model on the regular channels. We'll then need to test all other models to see which of them also suffer.

Re: Stuck on 720p

Brucemeister5 — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 20:20:03 GMT

Thanks for your efforts on this @DarrenDev . As long as I can still access Ultimate on this device I’ll be happy. I have alternative devices to view the regular channels. Strangely I hadn’t had any issues with it since 1080p/50 was introduced a few weeks ago until a couple of nights ago.