Buffering and Stuttering on Macs viewing BT Sport

[fredhew]

Hi,

I have exactly the same issue, stuttering picture, sound is fine. All used to be fine, only stated few months ago. BT Sport is fine on iPad, stutters on Imac. Download speed is fine, got the latest router, BT must have changed something. BT Sport is unwatchable on Imac, very frustrating

[dandanthesushiman]

 A further update......I am also still having this issue. I do believe the player is part of the problem. It seems to be very poor at coping with anything less than a perfect connection. After much investigation they believe there is an issue with the copper connection between the cabinet and my house. Even though i am mostly getting good speed I am having some packet loss and this it would seem that this is being reflected in the sport app on the computer. I am actually getting great support from BT's tech team but as yet the problem has not been resolved, there is talk of laying a new copper cable but I am suggesting that if they are going to dig up the road they should connect the fibre into the properties. I probably wont get that but there is no harm in asking. I would suggest taking a look at the logs generated by your router to see if that gives any more info and also being very pushy with BT in terms of getting support. I will keep you posted.

[hammer1]

I have a mid 2010 iMac running High Sierra 10.13.6 and have been having similar problems with the picture freezing etc. This was happening on both Firefox and Safari. After trying various things without success the BT technician suggested trying the google chrome browser, and happy to say it works perfectly now.

I know your post was some time ago now , but hope this helps.

[CaptainCornwall]

I have tried the prevent cross site tracking that you mention.And BT Sports just simply will not work for me.Even people that have a BT TV box like a Sky box say they get buffering when watching sports.And I find it varies on what I use my app on my Android works ok if it buffers about once every minute to a minute at for about a second but on my Mac OS and my windows laptop it buffers 50% of the time continuously.But on my Mac OS it seem to be worse off all but on this and all of my devices I can stream full HD or Blu-ray standard movies on Netflix or Sky Go with no problems at all.Do you have any other suggestions I tried using safari but it's outdated I try updating it tomorrow to see if that makes different but I was trying it on Chrome but I find Chrome is generally pretty good for streaming and most things which should not be that maybe it is can you inform me on this.I believe it's a problem with BT personally and I think if anyone has this problem everyone has it should complain directly to BT in their millions until they do something about it and threaten leaving because it's disgraceful that they charge for something that simply doesn't work Sky Go works fine on my Mac my laptop my iPad my mobile phone my windows why can't BT get it together

[CaptainCornwall]

You've all got really knew Max. Mine is ok the top end iMac 4 cost over 2 grand in 2008 but it can still stream HD on Sky Go Netflix anything so and so do all my device's stream perfectly but BT Sports doesn't work on any of my devices so surely these problems are fault with BT even though some of you have it working fine the fat that you have to tweak it so much to make it work you shouldn't have to change anything to make it work but if anyone has a good idea of something I can try on my Mac all my windows setup but I'd rather get it working on my Mac

[ploppy]

It's been a while but I thought I should give an update because things have improved.  I doubt this is an improvement introduced by BT per se.

To recap, BT sport on my 2008 MacBook Pro has been really poor.  Unwatchable, in fact.  Out of curiosity, I tried it again last week (an FA Cup game if I remember, but don't remember which).  I started watching the Enhanced Player.  Sure enough, just as before, it started at low resolution (really blurry) but no stuttering.  After a few seconds it switched to a higher res, and then started stuttering.  This was exactly as before.

I then clicked the teal menu in the top right of the player and chose Line ups or whatever it is.  The game switches to a mini window within the bigger window.  I left it there for a while, and it continued to stutter.  Then it stopped stuttering. I closed the team line up thing and the game window went back to normal size.  I had no stuttering from then on.  I'd have to say that the resolution was a bit lower than the high res at the start but it was perfectly watchable.  I didn't use any of the "enhanced" features of the player.

I can only conclude from this that when I first start the player it has a problem working out what rate/resolution it can support (if it is indeed rate-adaptive).  And it continues to fail to work it out.  Something about switching to the mini window seems to allow it to work it out.  Once it's worked it out, it's fine.

FYI, this is in Chrome on High Sierra 10.13.6 (which is offically unsupported on my MacBook Pro - but installable using the method described in dosdude1.com/highsierra).  I haven't tried Safari.

[Geoff103]

This is absolutey crazy.

I see from this forum contributirs have been discussing this for a whole year and still no resolution.

I use a macmini running High Sierra.  I have an ethernet connection to my BT router (brand new and latest version),fibe to the property with 73 MbpS DOWNLOAD, whether Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera or Maxthon it makes no difference.  Unwatchable. Flash is latest version.

The app works perfectly on ipad and web viewing on my Acer Chromebok is fine.  Once again, we are going to have to huddle around a 14" screen to watch tonight's game instead of relaxing in frot of a 50" screen attached to my macmini.

Sky sports, Netflix and all other streaming services work fine.

Pull your finger out BT and fix this

[ploppy]

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@Geoff103wrote:

This is absolutey crazy.

I see from this forum contributirs have been discussing this for a whole year and still no resolution.

I use a macmini running High Sierra.  I have an ethernet connection to my BT router (brand new and latest version),fibe to the property with 73 MbpS DOWNLOAD, whether Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera or Maxthon it makes no difference.  Unwatchable. Flash is latest version.

The app works perfectly on ipad and web viewing on my Acer Chromebok is fine.  Once again, we are going to have to huddle around a 14" screen to watch tonight's game instead of relaxing in frot of a 50" screen attached to my macmini.

Sky sports, Netflix and all other streaming services work fine.

Pull your finger out BT and fix this

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Firstly, the player doesn't use Flash.

Secondly, have you tried the workaround I described in my post just above yours?  I've used that method regularly since I stumbled upon it, and it's worked every time. 

[Geoff103]

No, haven't tried your workaround.  Looks as if only works on enhanced player not standard player. And standard player has all the same problem.

I wasnt sure about Flas,  just mentioned that had it up to date to forestall any 'suggestions'abut pdating.

I will give it a go but it simply shouldnt be necessary and wondering why instead of playing through browser why not make an app available on macOS?  Sky sports has an external player.

[ploppy]

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@Geoff103wrote:

No, haven't tried your workaround.  Looks as if only works on enhanced player not standard player. And standard player has all the same problem.

I wasnt sure about Flas,  just mentioned that had it up to date to forestall any 'suggestions'abut pdating.

I will give it a go but it simply shouldnt be necessary and wondering why instead of playing through browser why not make an app available on macOS?  Sky sports has an external player.

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Yes, it only works on the enhanced player.  I'd actually given up on the enhanced player (because it has more functionality, so I figured the problems would be worse) and would try repeatedly, in vain, to get it to work with the standard player.  It was only when I tried the enhanced player again, on the offchance, that I accidentally found a way to make it work (for me anyway).  If you do try it, wait for the mini-window to settle down before going back to full window.

As for the rest of your comment - I hear you.  But trying to get BT to fix it is an exercise in frustration.  And, as you rightly say, the likes of Sky on NowTV and Netflix play perfectly, so it's not beyond the wit of man.