Amazon Prime Video execs said this week they were “very hopeful” that Thursday Night Football streaming issues were “going to be less and less a thing.” Looks like we’ll all have to give it another go for Week 4.
The September 22 game between AFC North rivals Pittsburgh and Cleveland was peppered with continued streaming issues, where the resolution would drop out and pixelate — look bad, in other words — before returning back to normal. After that, it would work for a while and then drop out again. And the problem wasn’t just limited to the game broadcast — ads would look bad, too, which was at least a little ironic given the sheer number of spots for Amazon Web Services.
It’s the sort of thing that’s tough to troubleshoot, and sometimes tough to tell if it’s really a thing, as there are countless variables that go into it. There’s the video stream at the source, of course, and then how it’s being distributed regionally before it finally gets to your home network. And then there’s the matter of what device you’re watching on. It’s as much anecdote as it is science.
My setup, for example, had me watching via the Prime Video app on an Apple TV, which was connected via Ethernet to an Eero Pro 6, all fed by a gigabit fiber connection from AT&T. And that fiber speed is always in the 800 Mb/s+ range. And my resolution was fine — right up until the point where it wasn’t. It’d come and go, and the inconsistency perhaps was the worst part.
I wasn’t alone.
@philnickinson #tnfThis is unwatchable. 104mbps at my device and I’m stuck between skipping video or the twirl of death. It’s just awful. It’s just awful.
— Gabriel del Rio (@gdelrio) September 23, 2022
It was impossible to watch. The first quarter was a little better than the second, but there were still too many framerate issues. This is why it should be a national news story. This game is a joy to watch! You have tried FireStick, RokuUltra.
— B (@diplodink) September 23, 2022
Amazon streamed the Steelers-Browns match as its second production. In 2021, it streamed the games but wasn’t in charge of the production at all, instead piggybacking Fox. You could also access the games on NFL Network. This year, it’s all Amazon, all the time. (The NFL+ games are also available for streaming.
It’s obvious given the response from the Thursday Night Football execs on the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch PodcastAmazon was aware that Week 2 was difficult.
Let’s hope they get it fixed in time for the Miami Dolphins at Cincinnati Bengals on September 29.
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