For this 2022 World Cup not everyone experiences the matches in the same way. You are well settled in your sofa, Griezmann recovers the ball in midfield, passes it to Mbappé and there, when you were not expecting anything, your neighbors scream a “buuuuuuuuuut” coming from the bottom of their hearts. However, on your screen, no ball in the back of the net.
With you, the goal only arrives (at best) a few seconds later. What cause a certain annoyance or even, for the most passionate, an extreme frustration.
But where does this discrepancy between the image of your TV and that of your neighbor come from? And above all, how to fix this problem? We will explain everything to you.
2022 World Cup: from the stadium to TV, how does it work?
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This year, the 2022 World Cup is taking place in Qatar, so rather far from France. Technically, this makes TV broadcasting more difficult.
Indeed, the images captured by the UEFA cameras must first be grouped together in a broadcasting center before being sent to the television channels.
The images are therefore sent by optical fiber in the Netherlands to an International Broadcaster Center. From there, the video streams are distributed to the various European TV channels. This process takes less than a second.
But to avoid broadcasting nothing in the event of a technical problem, the channels double or triple the signals with satellite transmissions. In this case, the lag between the capture at the stadium and the broadcast drops to 2 seconds on average.
Delay may therefore already take place depending on the channel you are watching. For example, if a channel has chosen to go through a fiber stream, it will be ahead of another that has opted for satellite transmission. By a few tenths of a second, of course, but ahead all the same.
2022 World Cup: a delay due to your equipment
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If the technical choices of the channels only have a very slight influence on the lag, this is not the case with your own equipment. Indeed, if your neighbors see the goals before you do, it’s probably because they don’t use the same medium or the same broadcast stream as you.
In France, viewing modes are mainly divided into two categories: DTT or streaming. And in the little game of shifting, it is the TNT which is the most effective since there is none.
As soon as we go to streaming, everything will depend on the hardware, the quality of your connection and the application you are using. If you have a fiber connection, the delay is on the order of a few seconds to about 30 seconds when using an operator box.
If you use an Apple TV or an Android TV box, you will need to connect to an application such as MyCANAL, BeinSport, MyTF1, 6Play or Molotov. In this case, the lag can still lengthen and reach 30 seconds.
This duration can still extend if you have a 4K TV and that you follow the match in this quality. Since the amount of data to be transported is greater, the transmission takes longer.
Finally, the worst way to watch World Cup 2022 matches is using a PC, tablet or smartphone. Even more so if you rely on a 4G mobile connection. In this case, the offset can reach the minute. According to the tests of our colleagues from Cnet France for Euro 2021, the difference between a match broadcast on TF1 via TNT and a match that we watch in 4G on Molotov from his smartphone reaches 44 seconds. An eternity in a football game.
As you will have understood, to avoid hearing your neighbors jump on the ceiling before you even have a goal, we advise you to connect your good old cable TV to watch the matches on TNT. Otherwise, you can also meet your friends in a bar. Take advantage, they are open.
