Streaming...

[elvis14]

I streamed via Wifi to my FireStick. There were a handful of times where the video froze for a second or two. Not enough to worry about. I just ran a speedtest on my Macbook and got 87 Mbs down and 23 up. Spectrum in Raleigh.

[-jk]

I streamed via Wifi to my FireStick. There were a handful of times where the video froze for a second or two. Not enough to worry about. I just ran a speedtest on my Macbook and got 87 Mbs down and 23 up. Spectrum in Raleigh.

How crowded is your neighborhood and household?

-jk

[dalmatians98]

We have Verizon FIOS service and had intermittent trouble when streaming WatchESPN on laptops and tablets. Last Christmas I bought a Roku stick. Since then, knock wood, little or no trouble with WatchESPN.

[SilkyJ]

We have Verizon FIOS service and had intermittent trouble when streaming WatchESPN on laptops and tablets. Last Christmas I bought a Roku stick. Since then, knock wood, little or no trouble with WatchESPN.

Verizon FiOS in Philly at a house in the 'burbs
Elon: we did WiFi on a Macbook Pro, HDMI to TV. Was a bit choppy occassionally, froze half a dozen times through out and I had to reload the page. We were also watching the REPLAY around 9:30pm ET when I got into town.
Utah Valley: WiFi on Macbook pro. Same issues. Switched to a Dell, hardwired, and seems to be more stable.
(Speedtest is indicating 80mbps down, 25 up both wifi and wired...)


For the preseason games, I was on a Roku via Comcast with 100mbps down and it was choppy. WiFi connection in a large apartment building...

[SilkyJ]

Verizon FiOS in Philly at a house in the 'burbs
Elon: we did WiFi on a Macbook Pro, HDMI to TV. Was a bit choppy occassionally, froze half a dozen times through out and I had to reload the page. We were also watching the REPLAY around 9:30pm ET when I got into town.
Utah Valley: WiFi on Macbook pro. Same issues. Switched to a Dell, hardwired, and seems to be more stable.
(Speedtest is indicating 80mbps down, 25 up both wifi and wired...)


For the preseason games, I was on a Roku via Comcast with 100mbps down and it was choppy. WiFi connection in a large apartment building...

Update: No choppiness right now, but it does seem to freeze/buffer every 5-10 minutes.

[jwillfan]

I posted some in the chat but here's what I saw:

Setup-Spectrum 100mbps internet, AC wifi, getting 110mbps on fast.com to my cell phone connected to same router
Tried Xbox One ESPN app and it froze 2x, backed out and restarted stream. At 3rd freeze I went to Roku and installed the app and activated it, then had no real freezes. Screen rez went blurry a few times but always recovered, maybe twice went to a "restarting" screen for a second or 2 but recovered...until about 2.5 min to go. Totally froze, then I went back to the menu and tried to restart and got a message saying unauthenticated but no way to re-authenticate/activate. Went BACK to the Xbox and it asked me to activate with a code AGAIN, 3rd time in < 24 hrs. Now I know why I haven't cut the cord yet! Streaming stuff still not ready for prime time. I considered youtube tv but would need yet ANOTHER device, chromecast or the like - my remote systems and more importantly my wife would not tolerate.

[LasVegas]

I posted some in the chat but here's what I saw:

Setup-Spectrum 100mbps internet, AC wifi, getting 110mbps on fast.com to my cell phone connected to same router
Tried Xbox One ESPN app and it froze 2x, backed out and restarted stream. At 3rd freeze I went to Roku and installed the app and activated it, then had no real freezes. Screen rez went blurry a few times but always recovered, maybe twice went to a "restarting" screen for a second or 2 but recovered...until about 2.5 min to go. Totally froze, then I went back to the menu and tried to restart and got a message saying unauthenticated but no way to re-authenticate/activate. Went BACK to the Xbox and it asked me to activate with a code AGAIN, 3rd time in < 24 hrs. Now I know why I haven't cut the cord yet! Streaming stuff still not ready for prime time. I considered youtube tv but would need yet ANOTHER device, chromecast or the like - my remote systems and more importantly my wife would not tolerate.

I cut the cord 4 years ago and stream exclusively with an Apple TV. No issues at all. Zero. Nada. And I stream 700 gb a month.

[-jk]

For the first time this season, I had a couple blurry moments, and one pause (mid-air in a FT). Otherwise, fine.

-jk

[elvis14]

How crowded is your neighborhood and household?

-jk

Sorry, just saw this question. Logged into the router last week and took a look at the list of connected devices in my house. There were about a dozen. My kids, both of whom are teenagers, stream a lot of Netflix, they essentially don't watch TV.

The neighborhood is large but not dense. They have run a lot of fiber of late but I don't know of any of my neighbors who have put it to use. Outside of cost savings, I just don't have the need. Multiple Netflix streams running last night during the game (streaming on the ESPN app) and no issues. I will say that the picture quality of the games this weekend wasn't great.

[Ggallagher]

I streamed the ESPN3 signal via wifi to a kind of mid range five year old Dell laptop. The picture quality was good, and there were only two or three brief freezes during the game. The router in the house I've visiting this week is one of the Apple Airport devices..

[SilkyJ]

For the first time this season, I had a couple blurry moments, and one pause (mid-air in a FT). Otherwise, fine.

-jk

I usually stream on an 4th-gen Apple TV, but sometimes I do simultaneous streams off of a single MacBook Pro.

I'm in NYC and usually get around 55-60 Mbps down with Verizon FiOS. No issues here.

Apple TV, 3rd generation. Suddenlink 50 Mbps via WiFi. Older router (D-Link DIR 615) and modem (Arris CM820). Nary a blip -- flawless video using WatchESPN app (knocks on wood).

I've heard a lot of reports of people having trouble streaming, and lots without trouble.

I had no trouble. I use a 1st gen Apple TV thingie, with a wired connection to our modem/router, to a modest 30 Mb Comcast connection.

Other results? Can we find any trends?

-jk

Apple TV 4th gen. WiFi with a netgear nighthawk R7000. Cox internet at 100 Mbps. Flawless all the time. I have no cable tv or satellite in my house. I stream 100% of what I watch. I never have issues.

Cox recently upped my speed to 100 Mbps from 50. I also had no issues when I was running with 50.

Pretty interesting: everyone using an Apple TV had a flawless stream, except for jk's one issue. I'm a bit surprised that virtually every other config had at least someone with an issue (I had issues on a Mac, a PC, different browser, Roku at home AND across service providers).

To me this suggests the browsers we are using on our laptops/mobile devices are not as stable. I'm going to talk to my IT guy on Monday and ask his opinion on the most stable browsers for streaming and will A/B test browsers next time we have to stream.

[fidel]

Apple TV 4, wired, burbs. spectrum with plenty of download (50 gbps).

i have noticed that the espn app will give choppy response at times, while same stream on directv now will come in crystal clear.

I almost never have issues with hbo, netflix, etc. espn app almost every showing some level of downgraded video.

FWIW. Happy to have cut the cord.

[campered]

I've heard a lot of reports of people having trouble streaming, and lots without trouble.

I had no trouble. I use a 1st gen Apple TV thingie, with a wired connection to our modem/router, to a modest 30 Mb Comcast connection.

Other results? Can we find any trends?

-jk

Saw the Utah valley beat down on my 65" Toshiba smart TV using Roku and the Watch/Espn app and very slow Frontier wireless internet. Had no problems but no HD quality.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Pretty interesting: everyone using an Apple TV had a flawless stream, except for jk's one issue. I'm a bit surprised that virtually every other config had at least someone with an issue (I had issues on a Mac, a PC, different browser, Roku at home AND across service providers).

To me this suggests the browsers we are using on our laptops/mobile devices are not as stable. I'm going to talk to my IT guy on Monday and ask his opinion on the most stable browsers for streaming and will A/B test browsers next time we have to stream.

I had no issues, streaming on my phone over suburban residential wifi, then pushing that signal to my Google Chromecast on my television. I guess I am an aberration.

[flyingdutchdevil]

WatchESPN app on iPhone and iPad. No issues ESPN has finally done something right.

[SilkyJ]

I had no issues, streaming on my phone over suburban residential wifi, then pushing that signal to my Google Chromecast on my television. I guess I am an aberration.

Not a total aberration. Others with similar configs had good experiences, but some didn't. It was just interesting that every Apple TV config seemed to be flawless. That's the only correlation I can find...nothing else seems to really line up.

[elvis14]

WatchESPN app on iPhone and iPad. No issues ESPN has finally done something right.

I wouldn't say they have done something right...I'd just say that they have done just 'OK'. When I stream Netflix or Amazon Prime video over the same setup the quality is so much better than ESPN. But at least our games were available.

[jwillfan]

Just saying - yes I have no issues using netflix, hbo go, amazon prime, etc - no matter if using my very old smart tv app, xbox, or roku. But as soon as I try live sports there is a difference. The difference is that with movies the algorithm can buffer ahead when there is good throughput but you can't buffer ahead something that hasn't happened yet. I may try pausing to be 2-3 minutes behind live next time to see if that helps. But with anything, various platforms implement algorithms differently so the Apple TV might be better engineered but there is likely a difference between the ESPN app on my Xbox vs Roku. I recall trying Sling TV on the Xbox over a year ago and it was Un-watchable. I got the roku during another trial of Sling in the spring and it's gotten waaay better.

[SilkyJ]

Just saying - yes I have no issues using netflix, hbo go, amazon prime, etc - no matter if using my very old smart tv app, xbox, or roku. But as soon as I try live sports there is a difference. The difference is that with movies the algorithm can buffer ahead when there is good throughput but you can't buffer ahead something that hasn't happened yet. I may try pausing to be 2-3 minutes behind live next time to see if that helps. But with anything, various platforms implement algorithms differently so the Apple TV might be better engineered but there is likely a difference between the ESPN app on my Xbox vs Roku. I recall trying Sling TV on the Xbox over a year ago and it was Un-watchable. I got the roku during another trial of Sling in the spring and it's gotten waaay better.

Fair when its live, but for the preseason games I was watching on replay and had some choppiness. Not as bad as live, but ESPN still isn't as good/stable as Netflix/Amazon--I'd bet a lot of money that those two companies are hiring more and better engineers and investing a lot more in their streaming infrastructure as they view themselves as tech companies, whereas ESPN is a media company at its core.