TV advice for non techy.

[wristpin]

Ive got a basic small LG smart TV in the kitchen that has a roof arial for Freeview and also talks to my router via wifi to get I player with varying amounts of buffering - some days perfect others painful. Been suggested that I should get a Firestick . Is that likely to improve things or should I spend similar money on boosting the the wifi signal from the router to the kitchen. Email etc is fine in the kitchen.
thoughts please.

 

[Chippie]

How easy would it be to run a cat5 cable from the router to the tv? ( assuming it’s got a nw port )

 

[skotl]

Check to see whether your iplayer app has the option to turn down the quality - if it's playing in HD (High Definition / quality) by default then forcing it to play in SD (Standard Definition) will greatly reduce the network throughput it needs.

How to do this depends on the specific iplayer app on the TV / device. If your TV doesn't allow you to do this in the app, then a firestick might (I don't know).

But I'd definitely start here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/questions/features/hd-information

 

[angellonewolf]

as a chance if your router is not that far away network cables are very cheap if your not in a rush for them and you dont have to wire it up neat for a quick test

 

[outofthefire]

Firesticks are pretty cheap and likely to be cheaper come black Friday, but if you're towing with iplayer I doubt the signal will be strong enough for a firestick

 

[wristpin]

How easy would it be to run a cat5 cable from the router to the tv? ( assuming it’s got a nw port )

Thanks, Not that easy on a permanent basis but I’ve got a long Ethernet cable that will connect to the router and the TV on trial basis , so I will run a test when my son is around to supervise !

 

[MoreWellie]

You probably need to end up doing both
I found iplayer in our freeview telly kept buffering and often locked out whilst playing things, pretty much every program we watched. A firestick was way better and only locked occasionally with no other changes
The final improvement was a mesh repeater on the wifi (router one end of the house, telly at the other)
Only use the firestick now so cannot tell you if the telly iplayer is any better