Why RTEPlayer so poor?

sinesprockett

Using the player on the lowest quality 512K, yet keeps buffering.
Netflix, Youtube etc for general use all ok, just the rteplayer is particularly bad
Any thoughts?

satguy

It badly needs some extra money spent on it. The IT department at RTE not really able to manage it, and are short one top notch all round tech guy.

Any money saved by not fixing the Player is money that could have gone to Tubbs or his ilk.

sinesprockett

Ah ok, thought it might be my internet connection but makes sense...
Such a shame as is a great thing to have, though suppose is normal for most TV stations now
and has a lot of potential.. very frustrating to use though
Shame that monies are being spent elsewhere but doesn't surprise me in the slightest

Atlantic Dawn

You will find the RTE Player on Sky boxes is perfect, a case of "He who pays the piper calls the tune" so to speak yet the licence payer who funds the majority of the organisation is left high and dry, it would never be allowed happen with the BBC Player.

NIMAN

Its content is very poor too imho.

Unless you want to watch Fair City, the news, the weather or the Lotto draws.

That seems to make up a lot of the catalogue for the player.

sinesprockett

That is true in comparison to other stations that you can access online, like bbc , Ch4 player etc
( am a saorviewer only- don't see the point in getting any satellite/cable etc as can just see most online now)
Its rare that I look at RTE player, the odd time but is a shame that isn't better quality especially for people outside in remoter areas

circadian

By far the worst media player provided by any broadcast network. During major events like the world cup the stream will drop as they can't provide the bandwidth, this in turn causes the usual run of ads before returning to the stream. Quality is poor and HD isn't even of a reasonable quality and we're now at a point where 4k is becoming more common in homes yet the RTE player is stuck in the mid 2000s.

ED E

circadian wrote: »

By far the worst media player provided by any broadcast network

Not quite true.


ITVs is worse. Not sure how they managed that feat, but it is.

lertsnim

I believe that the RTÉ Player was to be updated at the end of 2017. What happened? In its current incarnation it is ****.

NIMAN

circadian wrote: »

By far the worst media player provided by any broadcast network. During major events like the world cup the stream will drop as they can't provide the bandwidth, this in turn causes the usual run of ads before returning to the stream. Quality is poor and HD isn't even of a reasonable quality and we're now at a point where 4k is becoming more common in homes yet the RTE player is stuck in the mid 2000s.

Far from the truth.

4K isn't anywhere near common.

I'd say the vast majority of TVs in homes are still HD Ready or 1080p, and any people who bought a 4K telly in the last few years probably don't watch any 4k content on them.

There is limited 4K content, where do you think all this 4K content is that people are watching?

_Brian

The RTplayer app is a complete joke. There is some content buried there if you get beyond having fair city shoved in your face but the interphase is just so poor it’s laughable.

Tigerandahalf

The RTE Player has no ads on the Saorview Connect box but the player is still not in HD. It also has no subtitles.

TG4's player is also not in HD, even though they have a new android/iphone app, with chromecast. Why, I have no idea but presume it must be something to do with tg4 not paying HD charges on the saorview platform.

The players also need to show all content that was broadcast on the main platform. Otherwise it just dilutes the product.

Virgin Media had a dispute in the UK with UKTV over catchup content as they rightly realise viewers want all content on their players.

Of all the main broadcast players out there the iplayer is by far the best. All4 is good with a just short ad of 10 secs and the rest of the players are garbage loaded with ads and people just won't use because of it.

Netflix is forcing them all to catch up.

Wanderer78

Their live streaming service has gone to the dogs as well

circadian

NIMAN wrote: »

Far from the truth.

4K isn't anywhere near common.

I'd say the vast majority of TVs in homes are still HD Ready or 1080p, and any people who bought a 4K telly in the last few years probably don't watch any 4k content on them.

There is limited 4K content, where do you think all this 4K content is that people are watching?

I know plenty of people with 4k TVs since a large screen 4k telly is the same price as a large screen 1080p tv was a few years ago.

Plenty of people have Netflix and Prime which offer 4k content. Lots of people have either an Xbox or PS4 both of which allow for Blu-ray playback. Not to mention loads of people torrent content.

It may not be the de-facto standard but 4k is quickly becoming the norm. RTE player failing to even provide decent quality 720/1080 streams means they'll be decades behind in a few years.

Tigerandahalf

It is hard to know where 4k is going. I am not sure if there is a need or demand for it.

It takes up a lot of bandwidth on satellite and streaming is probably where its future lies.

Yes all tvs are pretty much 4k now but as mentioned above very few people are watching 4k content.

We would be much better served if standards across the board only allowed hd broadcast, so that all sd content would be history.

coldcake

I use loads of players and have to agree how terrible the RTÉ Player is. Now there’s not too much I would watch on RTÉ but the other night I was trying to stream something and it kept on buffering. I even switched to the lowest resolution but still no joy.

I tried different browsers but all buffered all the time. This after an evening of using different players from around the world including cbs, 4od BBC Iplayer which all worked in Hd. Only the RTÉ player had this issue. Awful!

BionicRasher

Everyone should start contacting the RTE Player social media channels and let them know of your thoughts.
I find it unbelievable how they have Chromecast enabled from iOS and not Android

#RTEPlayer on Twitter
They are on Facebook also.

Keep annoying them and maybe a concerted effort will make something happen

Tigerandahalf

BionicRasher wrote: »

Everyone should start contacting the RTE Player social media channels and let them know of your thoughts.
I find it unbelievable how they have Chromecast enabled from iOS and not Android

#RTEPlayer on Twitter
They are on Facebook also.

Keep annoying them and maybe a concerted effort will make something happen

They have set up on facebook that you can't contact them.

FRIENDO

The picture quality on the RTE Android app is terrible
Having Saorsat the only option for watching Champions league is on the player, and it's just shocking, unwatchable picture quality

kazoo106

They not going to do much with what they have in INEX - 10G into both LAN1 and LAN2
Now most ISP's will default mainly to LAN1 - so I'd say the pipe gets full and causes the buffering

RTE
https://www.inex.ie/ixp/customer/detail/30

And for comparison - Netflix and Google have double the ports RTE have