Watching BT Sport through Chromecast

Mallett94

Hello all,

If anyone out there has either the chromecast gen 3 or chromecast ultra and also has a bt sport sub where you can cast the app, I ask if you could try out and let me know what you think of the following:

I recently upgraded my Chromecast from gen 2 to gen 3 to take advantage of the increased bandwidth so that I could get the 1080/50p stream from BT Sport (the quality of the streams were upgraded in January 2018).

I have found that I have not been able to tell a difference between casting the BT Sport app from my android phone (and also a friends iPhone) on the Gen 3 compared to Gen 2. The framerate is definitely only 25fps (I have my Chromecast set to 50hz).

However if I open the BT Sport web player on google chrome on a computer, cast the tab to the Gen 3 Chromecast and click fullscreen, I get a much better quality image that is 1080 (it's very good) and definitely the 50fps framerate. It is so much smoother and really is better than the Android app cast stream.

If I watch a channel on my android phone though, I do have the increased framerate.

I think that the BT Sport app needs an update to enable the higher framerate stream to be casted and I have raised this query with the BT.

I think the that picture quality viewing it like this, 1080/50p through chromecast gen 3/ultra, is actually better than the 1080i50 (25fps) broadcast over sky/virgin/youview.

I look forward to your replies.

Cheers.

Mallett94

Hello, just wondered if anyone had got around to trying this out?

djcla

i think you might be better off on the BT community forums they are actually pretty helpful , i found the below thread which maybe of use or a starting point

Chromecast & 1080p50 - BT Community

Mallett94

Hello, that thread you linked is one that I have commented on previously haha. I have a seperate one going on there as well.

I don't need anyone to clarify anything, I just wanted to share what I had discovered so that everyone else may enjoy BT Sport through Chromecast in the best quality

StriderX7

@Mallett94 did you ever get to the bottom of this?

Mallett94

Surprisingly there has been pretty much no response on the BT forums.

However I have come to my own conclusion that that PQ is definitely better e.g. 1080p 50fps, when casting from the BT Sport Web Player via chrome on a 'proper PC', be it windows, macOS, linux, compared to just casting the BT Sport app from a mobile phone/tablet.

Sometimes the pq from casting the app can match when casting the web player chrome tab, but i feel when casting the app the quality of the stream is more liable to fluctuations in PQ due to the variable bit rate adaptive stream technology used.

Have you done any tests?

StriderX7

Helpful on their part....

I've only tested with an Nvidia Shield and casting from my iPhone so I can't comment on increased picture quality when casting from Chrome.

I have seen the variable bit rate in effect in recent months, it seems to happen much more than it used to. While I get 50fps most of the time, you can tell it drops down to 25fps here and there.

I'm getting rid of the Shield soon and was thinking of replacing it with a Chromecast for BT Sport. While casting from a computer isn't the most convenient setup, it looks like that's what I'll have to do.