Wireless broadband - SkyGo unwatchable via Chromecast but okay on source device

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AklBen

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#305728 31-May-2023 12:39

At the family holiday home we got rid of ADSL and changed to Wireless Broadband with Spark. As we're only there for weekends every 4-6 weeks this is satisfactory. However, SkyGo (just watching rugby games) has buffering issues when watching on Chromecast.

When the Chromecast is disconnected and you watch on your phone, the buffering stops and coverage is near perfect.

Anyone else found this? And if not, can anyway allude to why this would be happening?

richms

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#3082749 31-May-2023 12:56

Which chromecast? I have had my first gens become unusable recently with youtube because they are now just too slow to run all the stuff it has to load.

Richard rich.ms

allio

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#3082753 31-May-2023 13:03

Assume you are casting directly and not doing some kind of screen mirroring arrangement?

Sounds like your Chromecast's wifi connection might just be falling a bit short. Are you using the wifi built into the Spark 4G router? My Dad has a Spark unit (albeit from a few years ago) and the wireless performance was absolutely awful - it was 2.4Ghz only and couldn't do buffer-free Sky streaming either, regardless of how good the 4G signal was.

AklBen

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#3082764 31-May-2023 13:28

@richms: I am unsure what gen it is but I the Chromecast is at least 5-6 years old - but we also have a similarly aged one at home and it doesn't have any issues (on Fibre 100).

@allio: Not screenshare, it's direct. Yeah I did wonder if the Chromecast's wifi wasn't up to snuff and/or crammed at the back of a TV was limiting a clear signal. The router from Spark is one of their more recent Wifi 6 units.

We're going there this long weekend and I might try a few things to see if I can improve it in and amongst the settings.

allio

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#3082795 31-May-2023 14:45

AklBen:

@richms: I am unsure what gen it is but I the Chromecast is at least 5-6 years old - but we also have a similarly aged one at home and it doesn't have any issues (on Fibre 100).

@allio: Not screenshare, it's direct. Yeah I did wonder if the Chromecast's wifi wasn't up to snuff and/or crammed at the back of a TV was limiting a clear signal. The router from Spark is one of their more recent Wifi 6 units.

We're going there this long weekend and I might try a few things to see if I can improve it in and amongst the settings.

The original one (picture) was 2.4Ghz only and definitely struggled with high bitrate streams. If you have the same model at home but have no issues with Sky Go, it could be down to different wifi settings/conditions.

Anything newer than the OG one supports 5Ghz and should be good to go. Just make sure it's connected to the 5Ghz SSID and not a 2.4G only one.

AklBen

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#3082906 31-May-2023 16:04

^ yeah it's certainly newer than that one. Yep on arrival I will fiddle with the wifi settings and see how we go.

huckster

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#3082911 31-May-2023 16:23

May then fall back to the TV being between it and the router. HDMI extension cable to bring it out from behind?

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Spanners163

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#3082914 31-May-2023 16:31

I had the same experience with Chromecast 3. Every 3 or 4 minutes I'd get a 5-10 second buffer and skip. Super frustrating when there was a potential try scoring play.

I bought a new Sony 4k tv over summer and casting directly to that removed the problem, so it was definitely the Chromecast 3.

richms

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#3082935 31-May-2023 17:40

Even the early round ones seem to be struggling with some of the HTML player stuff that some services are making them load up, there is also that they have really bad codec support. Really the chromecasts that are not the 4k one are so underpowered that its probably time to retire them.

Richard rich.ms