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Leaf Games Buffering

Patches0408
I've been here awhile

We use a firestick & an IPTV provider and lately a lot of Leaf games get stuck in vuffering mode and never come on. Specifically these games are on Sportsnet & TSN. When I complained to my provider they said Rogers is blocking the games. Is this true or is this a marketing scheme to get me to purchase a VPN? My son has Bell internet & he has no trouble watching all the games.

 

 

 

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Re: Leaf Games Buffering

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@Patches0408 wrote:

We use a firestick & an IPTV provider and lately a lot of Leaf games get stuck in vuffering mode and never come on. Specifically these games are on Sportsnet & TSN. When I complained to my provider they said Rogers is blocking the games. Is this true or is this a marketing scheme to get me to purchase a VPN? My son has Bell internet & he has no trouble watching all the games.


Who is your TV service provider and which Internet package do you subscribe to?  Start, TekSavvy, EBOX, VMedia, Distributel, CIK, and other smaller providers all have their specific issues... but I don't think that this is a Rogers problem for Sportsnet, or a Bell problem for TSN.  The channel provider delivers the source feed, either directly or distributed through a third party satellite or streaming service; the TV provider then encodes and streams it.

 

Sports channels are challenging to deliver because they need to be encoded with a very high quality and at a high frame rate or else they will look awful.  Customers will also complain if the IPTV provider introduces too much encoding delay, especially they get notified of a goal through a sports app on their mobile device two minutes before they see it on the screen.  You need very fast, high-quality encoders (especially if you also need to de-interlace the source signal prior to encoding), you need to deliver those channels at a high bit rate, and the end customer need to have a fast Internet service and an in-home network that works well.  If any of those things are not done properly, you will not get a good experience with your TV service.  If you are getting constant buffering while watching a TV channel, the most likely culprit is that either your Internet service is too slow or your TV service provider's streaming servers are too slow.  It's also possible that your Fire TV Stick is not powerful enough to process, decode and render a high-quality stream.  Regardless of the cause, it's a problem that you need to resolve through your service provider.  You can also switch to a larger IPTV provider (Ignite TV works great) or to a satellite TV service.

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Re: Leaf Games Buffering

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@Patches0408 wrote:

We use a firestick & an IPTV provider and lately a lot of Leaf games get stuck in vuffering mode and never come on. Specifically these games are on Sportsnet & TSN. When I complained to my provider they said Rogers is blocking the games. Is this true or is this a marketing scheme to get me to purchase a VPN? My son has Bell internet & he has no trouble watching all the games.


Who is your TV service provider and which Internet package do you subscribe to?  Start, TekSavvy, EBOX, VMedia, Distributel, CIK, and other smaller providers all have their specific issues... but I don't think that this is a Rogers problem for Sportsnet, or a Bell problem for TSN.  The channel provider delivers the source feed, either directly or distributed through a third party satellite or streaming service; the TV provider then encodes and streams it.

 

Sports channels are challenging to deliver because they need to be encoded with a very high quality and at a high frame rate or else they will look awful.  Customers will also complain if the IPTV provider introduces too much encoding delay, especially they get notified of a goal through a sports app on their mobile device two minutes before they see it on the screen.  You need very fast, high-quality encoders (especially if you also need to de-interlace the source signal prior to encoding), you need to deliver those channels at a high bit rate, and the end customer need to have a fast Internet service and an in-home network that works well.  If any of those things are not done properly, you will not get a good experience with your TV service.  If you are getting constant buffering while watching a TV channel, the most likely culprit is that either your Internet service is too slow or your TV service provider's streaming servers are too slow.  It's also possible that your Fire TV Stick is not powerful enough to process, decode and render a high-quality stream.  Regardless of the cause, it's a problem that you need to resolve through your service provider.  You can also switch to a larger IPTV provider (Ignite TV works great) or to a satellite TV service.

Re: Leaf Games Buffering

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

Are you using apps for TSN and SN?  If so, there have been many complaints about the poor picture quality when streaming on these apps.  The picture quality doesn't compare well to the regular "broadcast" channels that you would view on Rogers - say channel 30 for TSN on Rogers.  This poor picture quality when streaming has been discussed a lot on various forums - sample below.

 

https://www.digitalhome.ca/threads/tsn-and-sportsnet-hd-video-quality.294481/#post-3147682

 

Again, there is a huge difference between streaming and "broadcast" picture quality. It doesn't explain why you have the buffering, but that's likely due to low Internet bandwidth.  What is the download speed that you have (tested) and who is the provider?

Re: Leaf Games Buffering

Patches0408
I've been here awhile
I agree the problem is the IPTV provider. It's happened intermittently in the past but as playoffs get closer it's been almost every game. Sometimes we were able to find the games on different channels - BallySports or local US city channels. But now even those were buffering, obviously it's our IPTV provider blocking or having issues & trying to sell me a VPN. Thank you for answering in a language we were able to understand - not completely technology mumbojumbo.
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