Both linear and streaming broadcasts have shown up with technical issues over the years, but there’s always a lot of discussion about challenges with streaming. And there can be much more dramatic variance in experience with streaming, as that depends not just on the originating broadcast, but on the viewer’s internet connection and whatever intermediate app and/or hardware they’re using to access the broadcast. The latest case of that came on this week’s Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football broadcast, the regular-season opener for Amazon’s second season of exclusive NFL broadcasts, with that drawing everything from slams to rave reviews. Here are some of those:
It's not even in .5K at this point. Any pass, it's almost like you can see the ball in 5 places on the pass.
Just really bad video quality.
— Christian Lukens (@ChristianLukens) September 15, 2023
Much better signal quality on Amazon than YoutubeTV right now. pic.twitter.com/JEguRbfFRQ
— Sam Walker OBX🎙📻📰🥍🦓 (@SamWalkerOBX) September 15, 2023
App stopped working through xfinity box in 3rd quarter. Turned on appletv and no issues.
— The Hawk 8 (@CardNerd0605) September 15, 2023
Great on the Prime Video app on my Xbox One
— 🛸Austin 🛸 (@AustinHeff) September 15, 2023
My audio feed has been sporadic, especially in Q1. Fine otherwise
— Justin Maple (@JustinMaple13) September 15, 2023
I had to reboot both my AppleTV devices because the video from Prime was pretty bad.
Don’t know if that was on my end, or theirs but after the reboot the video has been excellent.
I didn’t have to reboot my Roku sticks, video was great right from the get-go— Glenn Rushworth (@glrush13) September 15, 2023
Amazon app on Android, autoplay video on app home screen worked fine until I accidently closed the promo. Now get an error message when clicking on any of the broadcast options from TNF page in app. pic.twitter.com/WvpYg6yr2c
— Zach (@Zach_81) September 15, 2023
I’ve had it go to slow motion a few times
— Jim Muessig (@JimMuessig) September 15, 2023
It’s the same as last year. It’s choppy (the best way I can describe it.). I use a fire stick and it’s the only broadcast that’s ever been a problem.
— Jesse (@LyonsBlitz0090) September 15, 2023
From my phone for the last 30 mins pic.twitter.com/DkHBjGNmgN
— Joe Wagstaff (@Joe_Wagstaff) September 15, 2023
besides these un-closable highlights popping up well after they’ve happened blocking the screen a bit, things have been going alright pic.twitter.com/vOxBYXWCxP
— WhattaHoser (@WhattaHoser) September 15, 2023
No complaints regarding game flow
— Scott Akos 🇺🇸 (@AkosScott) September 15, 2023
The complaints here aren’t as widespread or as numerous as we’ve seen with some past streaming broadcasts. But they are more numerous than the largely-positive feedback we saw for NFL Sunday Ticket’s YouTube debut this week. And it’s interesting to see some technical issues persist with these Amazon broadcasts, as Prime Video has been streaming Thursday Night Football since 2017 (starting with non-exclusive streaming: they picked up exclusive streaming rights in 2018, and then full exclusive rights apart from local broadcast stations in the team’s markets last year).
Amazon has said a lot about their efforts to ensure high-quality, low-latency streams, both last year and this year. And as noted above, people having streaming issues isn’t necessary about anything on Prime Video’s end: everything from the end user’s internet service provider to the specific hardware they’re using to access the Amazon stream can be a factor. (This is what makes it harder to pinpoint what’s wrong on a streaming front; while linear broadcasts have run into plenty of technical difficulties as well, those can usually be identified as either with the originating broadcaster or with one specific multichannel video programming distributor’s feed of it.) But it is interesting to see significant numbers of people still reporting issues streaming Thursday Night Football, even if it’s working fine for others.
[Awful Announcing on Twitter; image from Joe Wagstaff on Twitter]