Buffering and Stuttering on Macs viewing BT Sport

[dandanthesushiman]

For the past few months I have been unable to watch BT Sport on my Mac without the picture going from sharp to pixelatted and stuttering and buffering. I have BT Infinity so I get decent download speed. I have had  issues with the connection and I had a visit from an engineer a few days ago, he felt that my router should be updated so I am awaiting the arrival of a new one. Meanwhile I have continued to troubleshoot and look in the forums as well as contacting BT asking for help. I work in Tech so I have done a fair bit of testing, including ethernet vs wifi, re-booting the computer, making sure that no body else in the house is using anything internet related and making sure that all the settings in my browsers are as recommended by BT.

When connected to Ethernet I am getting downloads of around 50mg which should be plenty quick enough to get a good picture. Netflix, iPlayer and You tube are all fine. The only problem is BT Sport. One frustration is it used to be fine, it seems to have only developed these issues in the past few months. Last night while trying to see the Madrid v PSG game I tried it on the Mac the regular viewer was stuttering and the enhanced viewer even worse. I then veiwed the same content on my iPad (over wifi) using the App and it was fine. I downloaded some software onto my mac that enabled me to Airplay the ipad onto the imac and this was fine. This has led me to think that the issue is actually with the viewing of the content via a browser on the mac rather than the connection/router/network. I have tried both chrome which I believe uses Flash and Safari which uses HTML 5 but neither deliver a smooth sharp picture.

I will continue to test but wanted to throw out a few questions to users

Are other people having similar issues? (I already know the answer by looking at other posts)

Is this a recent issue?

Has anyone found a solution?

And a few questions to BT

Did something change in the way the content is being delivered via browsers a few months ago?

Are you testing for these kind of issues?

Are there any changes that are being worked on to address these problems?

Is there a technical helpline where more expert help could be accessed?

I will look forward to getting some feeback

[Dode]

Not having any problems at all. I do have to make sure that 'Ask websites not to track me' and 'Prevent cross-site tracking' ar un-checked in the Prefs though. iMac running High Sierra. I can also stream it to the tv from an iPod touch using Chromecast with no problems.

[dandanthesushiman]

Hi Dode

Thanks for the reply, when I get home I am going to list all the versions of OS and Browser as well as versions of router, if you and other respondants can do the same we may be able to build a more scientific picture of setups that are having problems and setups that are not. It is evident from the forums that my experience is not uncommon, at the the same time I am assuming lots of people are fine. There must be a way to narrow down where the problems are.

[Dode]

Just watched Celtic v Zenit and no problems. Didn't have any problems with the HH5 watching BTsport and am now using a TP-Link VR400.

[oldtimer]

I have  also have this problem which has occurred since BT upgraded me to all Sport packages from having only BT Sport 1.  I watch (or try to watch) using Safari High Sierra. I have no problem with watching the videos on the sports channels it is just the live broadcasts. It starts off ok for about 10 seconds then goes into stuttering mode with single frames.  Sound is ok.  I have tried Chrome and it runs ok for 5 seconds stops for about a 10th of a second then continues doing the same throughout the time I watch.  BT support on line told me there must be a problem with my Mac.  No there is not there is something wrong with BT sport! or I might have a setting on the Mac that needs changing.  I have changed all the setttings recommended but nothing changes with the picture.  I seems strange that some people have no problem but others are complaining quite often on this site about the problem.  Come on BT get it sorted please.

[ploppy]

Same here exactly.  And we pay for this.

[ploppy]

@Dode I tried to watch that match and it was stuttering for me. Can you say what model iMac you watched on and how much RAM? Did you watch over wifi? If so, 2GHz or 5Ghz?

[Dode]

iMac 21.5-inch, Late 2015,    2.8 GHz Intel Core i5 Processor,   16GB Memory,  Intel Iris Pro Graphics,  Fusion Drive.

Watched using ethernet/homeplugs ( BT600 ). Don't know if any of the above helped Celtic to score??

[ploppy]

OK - I have more info.  I've just watched the last 10mins of Genoa v Inter in full screen on my MacBook Pro and it's been excellent quality, almost perfect.  However, this is with the "old" player, albeit HTML5 I think (rather than Flash - it can't be Flash because I don't have it installed).  I think it's the Enhanced Player that doesn't work for me - the one that has the coloured balls before you press play, and has a timeline of incidents along the bottom.  So the question is, is there a way to always choose the un-enhanced player?

[ploppy]

@Dode OK that's a lot newer than my laptop, and more capable in every respect. But see my comment about the enhanced player. Something's going on, because graphics-wise my laptop can handle the video stream in the un-enhanced player (which is plenty good enough for me).