The trend of streaming continues to grow rapidly, replacing the traditional methods of TV viewing that required antennas or dishes. With the convenience of broadband, streaming content directly to TVs has become much simpler, especially in areas without access to aerial connections.
However, streaming over the internet faces an issue, particularly evident during live sports broadcasts, known as latency. This delay can cause viewers to be behind the action broadcasted over the air, resulting in a lag between the live event and the streamed content.
To address this challenge, Sky has already introduced new streaming devices like Sky Glass and Sky Stream, reducing the latency for sports events to just a few seconds behind the live broadcast. Following suit, the BBC has now implemented a similar update for devices such as Fire TV Sticks, Sony TVs, and BT set-top boxes, ensuring lower latency for shows. Although the trial has been ongoing, it has recently been confirmed to extend further.
Melissa Darragh, Senior R&D Engineer, elaborated on the BBC’s efforts, stating that they are expanding the low latency streaming trial on BBC iPlayer beta to more supported devices and testing over an extended period. This expansion aims to evaluate the performance of low latency streaming outside controlled environments, allowing for more accurate measurements under various network conditions in users’ homes.
The BBC hopes that this extension will enhance the viewing experience for users watching live events, including breaking news, sports, and concerts. They encourage more households to participate in the trial to gather additional feedback and improve the service.
Users with supported devices can engage in the trial by watching BBC Two live on iPlayer Beta during specific hours. The trial stream will be available for viewers in England or Scotland and is expected to run for about a month. Apart from reduced delays, users are unlikely to notice significant differences in the streaming experience. However, if issues arise, they can opt out of the beta trial through the Settings menu to revert to conventional streaming.
The BBC has provided a list of compatible devices for the low latency streaming trial, including Fire TV Edition 4K 2022, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen), BT TV Box Pro, Sky Glass Gen 1, select Bush TVs, Sony TVs, and Toshiba TVs.
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