BT Sport internet deal

[Martin Brown]

Apologies for the cross post but I hope to get both technical and end user views on the BT Sports deal as it might possibly be useful for my technophobe parents. They are not internet savvy and so their Panasonic internet capable TV will need to handle BTs encoding if it is to work.

An extra box is a possibility, but they have enough problems driving the DVD recorder. Yet another handset to misplace is problematic.

How easy is BT Sport to watch over the internet on a Panasonic TV? I have tried looking at the BT website and am still no wiser about what decoding platforms apart from PC and Apple are actually supported.

BT Infinity with TV is out of the question. Freesat is possible - the TV would support it but adding 100 to all channel numbers would make everything that bit more fiddly for them.

I don't know anyone that has the BT Sport deal so I am stuck.

If you do have it, technical issues aside, is there a decent amount of football coverage on it?

I presume anything better than 4Mbps BRAS is OK for full HD streaming.

Thanks for any enlightenment.

[Jim]

The PC streaming is very variable. It uses Silverlight and often struggles to maintain connection. I wouldn't recommend it.

There's also an Android app. It works much better, but might not make life any easier unless they are OK with touch screens. You could possibly send the picture from the Android device to the TV (as with the Amazon ad on TV), if the set has that capability. I doubt you will ever see an app on the TV itself.

4Mbps might be OK for the streaming apps. It's nowhere near enough for HD.

It was possible to get a card for the encrypted terrestrial service, but BT were only giving those out where they couldn't provide Infinity and their YouView box. You could try that route. It would be much the easiest way, IF the card was compatible with the TV, though I suspect you would still need a BT Vision box.

I don't think you can get the service on Freesat. You need a Sky subscription/box. Maybe you can get it with just "Freesat from Sky".

There's plenty of football, though not all from the UK. You can view what's on through the Freeview EPG. There's about 1 EPL and SPL match per fortnight at the moment - it may become weekly towards the latter half of the season. FA cup is also covered, along with Europa League. Champions League rights have been secured for 2015. Lots of Bundesliga, Serie A, MLS, but not La Liga.

[Broadback]

As a non sport person it niggles me that I have to pay BT to transmit this rubbish (to me)