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.
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...
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.
For the first time this season, I had a couple blurry moments, and one pause (mid-air in a FT). Otherwise, fine.
-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.
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..
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.
Last edited by SilkyJ; 11-12-2017 at 10:42 AM.
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.
WatchESPN app on iPhone and iPad. No issues ESPN has finally done something right.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
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.