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Streaming TV Catch Up Services

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  Streaming TV Catch Up Services "Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> - 2026-06-15 08:20 +0000
    Re: Streaming TV Catch Up Services MikeS <MikeS@fred.com> - 2026-06-15 10:27 +0100
    Re: Streaming TV Catch Up Services Roderick Stewart <rjfs@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> - 2026-06-15 10:35 +0100
    Re: Streaming TV Catch Up Services Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2026-06-15 13:10 +0100

#249407 — Streaming TV Catch Up Services

I asked this in the broadband group but wonder if anybody here can comment?

I have a new Tp-Link DR3650V-4G Omada 4G+ Cat6 Ax3000 Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit 
Desktop Dsl Gateway 4G+ to give it its full name and it has a Three data 
SIM in it which gives me download speeds of up to 50 Mb/s. I have seen 
that speed once, it usually hovers between 34 Mb/s and 44 Mb/s compare to 
the 10 Mb/s my FTTC  ADSL gives me.

I am trying it since there is no hope of FTTP or higher speeds from FTTC 
here.

It has been very good but I do notice that streaming ITVX I get some 
buffering and I have had an error dialog pop up on my streaming box. The 
error box did say once it was a problem at their end and try again later, 
sometime the whole program works fine but not the adverts. When this 
happened I switched to BBC iTunes (is that the right name?) and it was 
perfectly smooth, no problems.

I just wondered if people here had streaming problems with ITVX? I don't 
want to jump from poor FTTC to bad mobile Internet.

-- 
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Have you ever noticed that all the instruments searching for intelligent 
life are pointing away from Earth?

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#249408

On 15/06/2026 09:20, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> 
> I asked this in the broadband group but wonder if anybody here can comment?
> 
> I have a new Tp-Link DR3650V-4G Omada 4G+ Cat6 Ax3000 Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit 
> Desktop Dsl Gateway 4G+ to give it its full name and it has a Three data 
> SIM in it which gives me download speeds of up to 50 Mb/s. I have seen 
> that speed once, it usually hovers between 34 Mb/s and 44 Mb/s compare 
> to the 10 Mb/s my FTTC  ADSL gives me.
> 
> I am trying it since there is no hope of FTTP or higher speeds from FTTC 
> here.
> 
> It has been very good but I do notice that streaming ITVX I get some 
> buffering and I have had an error dialog pop up on my streaming box. The 
> error box did say once it was a problem at their end and try again 
> later, sometime the whole program works fine but not the adverts. When 
> this happened I switched to BBC iTunes (is that the right name?) and it 
> was perfectly smooth, no problems.
> 
> I just wondered if people here had streaming problems with ITVX? I don't 
> want to jump from poor FTTC to bad mobile Internet.
> 
BBC iPlayer will downgrade the stream quality if it detects a problem 
with the connection speed, no idea if ITVX is the same. What happens 
with your 10 Mb/s FTTC ADSL which should OK for a single HD stream?

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#249409

On 15 Jun 2026 08:20:25 GMT, "Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com>
wrote:

>
>I asked this in the broadband group but wonder if anybody here can comment?
>
>I have a new Tp-Link DR3650V-4G Omada 4G+ Cat6 Ax3000 Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit 
>Desktop Dsl Gateway 4G+ to give it its full name and it has a Three data 
>SIM in it which gives me download speeds of up to 50 Mb/s. I have seen 
>that speed once, it usually hovers between 34 Mb/s and 44 Mb/s compare to 
>the 10 Mb/s my FTTC  ADSL gives me.
>
>I am trying it since there is no hope of FTTP or higher speeds from FTTC 
>here.
>
>It has been very good but I do notice that streaming ITVX I get some 
>buffering and I have had an error dialog pop up on my streaming box. The 
>error box did say once it was a problem at their end and try again later, 
>sometime the whole program works fine but not the adverts. When this 
>happened I switched to BBC iTunes (is that the right name?) and it was 
>perfectly smooth, no problems.
>
>I just wondered if people here had streaming problems with ITVX? I don't 
>want to jump from poor FTTC to bad mobile Internet.

Now and again a programme on ITVX will simply stop and throw me back
to the menu, where I have to navigate back to it and press "Resume".
It doesn't happen very often but I haven't seen this on the other
services, so maybe they've underestimated the server capacity they
need to run the service. Whatever it is it's definitely them, not me. 

Everything on iPlayer (last time I checked) is streamed at 50fps.
Everything on the other terrestrial catchup services, including ITVX,
is streamed at 59.94fps,even though most of it will have been shot for
British television. I think this may account for the occasional
glitch, though not for severe buffering.

(The utility app for the Amazon Fire stick wrongly indicates the frame
rate as 59.93, not 59.94, but that's another story).

It seems absolutely nuts to me that material originally shot at 25
frames/second (or 50 fields/second) should be shown at any other
speed, and it's difficult to believe that the only available versions
of the analogue originals would have been converted to American
analogue standards before being presented for digital streaming. The
BBC can do it correctly, as can Amazon and Netflix (which have some TV
material as well as movies).

Amazon and Netflix actually change the frame rate depending on what
the material is - 23.76, 24, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 (wrongly shown as
59.93) or 60 fps as appropriate.

I assume that when a movie is shown at one of the fractional values it
means that the only available version is a recording originally
scanned for American analogue television. Recent cinema movies shown
on Amazon or Netflix are generally shown at 24fps.

In the days of analogue broadcast television and cathode ray tube TVs
with tuned diode-pentode line output circuitry it was important that
the broadcast signal kept the same synchronising signals at all times,
so anything originated on different standards had to be converted
first, but modern digital displays can handle changes in frame rate
perfectly well. There's no reason not to show everything at the frame
rate at which it was originally shot (provided the original is
available of course). Maybe the terrestrial TV companies think they
have to run a streaming service to the same technical standards as an
analogue broadcast service and nobody has ever questioned it.

Rod.

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#249410

Jeff Gaines wrote:

> I just wondered if people here had streaming problems with ITVX?

I only use it infrequently (like once or twice a year) but it works when 
I do use it (over 80Mb broadband).  Probably not very helpful info.

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