Xfinity Stream TV app buffers every 3-5 minutes during popular sporting events

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@Ryn0 wrote:
Not sure if I’m the only one that has this issue, but nearly every time I try to watch the “biggest” college football game of a particular Saturday, that channel on my Xfinity Stream TV app constantly is buffering every 3-5 minutes. All other channels work perfectly fine with no buffering. It’s only during the most popular college football game(s) of the week when I experience the constant buffering. Whichever channel has the game, only that channel buffers during the game. It stops after the game is over likely because there are fewer people watching that particular channel.

For example, during the UGA v Notre Dame game on CBS on Sept 21, 2019, the game buffered constantly (every few minutes) during the game. This was the biggest CFB matchup of the week since it was two top 10 teams in prime time. I’d have to exit the channel and re-select it. Even tried unplugging and rebooting. All other channels worked fine. Once the game ended, the channel stopped buffering. My internet speed is 500mb/s and there were no internet network issues that day.

My best guess is that Comcast servers can’t handle a lot of people streaming the same channel at the same time on the Xfinity stream TV app. I use a 2018 6-series QLED Samsung TV by the way.

Another example, today (November 9, 2019) during the Penn State v Minnesota college football game on ABC, the channel buffers every few minutes. This is another popular top 20 matchup, and one of the biggest games of the weekend. No other channel is experiencing this buffering issue except this one.

I predict I’ll have the same buffering issue later this afternoon during the LSU v Alabama matchup on CBS since it’s a top 5 game that will be very popular to watch by a lot of people.

To reiterate, I rarely ever have internet speed issues or channel buffering issues 99.9% of the time on the xfinity stream TV app. The only time this buffering happens is during very popular college football games on whichever TV channel has that particular game (CBS, ABC, FOX, ESPN, etc.).

I already have a support ticket open, but was very disappointed to hear the excuses by the support team that “this is a new app” (even though the app is over 1.5 years old). They also said I should just watch the game on my TV box because technically the app is free. Wow—so it’s false advertising that part of my very expensive cable TV subscription also covers the ability for me to stream TV from my devices from your app?? I apparently can only watch popular college football games on the one TV that has the cable box attached to it. Absolutely embarrassing advice from Comcast. And they wonder why people are cutting the cable and looking for non-Comcast internet options to able to stream TV channels...

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are you at home connected to your own home wifi when this happens? is it a numbered channel you are viewing? you mentioned other devices are they being used at same time? what speeed internet do you have on your subscription? The stream from comcast live channels is 'anycast'. what that means is your are watching a stream and errors are not corrected it is much like broadcast TV. it matters not to comcast servers how many are tuned to it. would you detail your other devices you were trying to use to test?

I am streaming tv through my Samsung Q80 with the Xfinity Streaming Beta App. It also buffers every 3-5 minutes while watching an NFL game. Everything else I watch is just fine. No issues. Only football. It really gets frustrating. I've got 300mb speed internet through Xfinity and I'm hardwired straight to the TV. I don't understand why it does that. I've also called many times for answers and can't get any. The last person I spoke with said it must be the network and how they are broadcasting it. Lame answer! Why then does everything else on that same network view fine without buffering? I wish someone could get this resolved.