how much bandwidth does iplayer use

myxbox

hi there

how much bandwith does watching catch up on bbc iplayer use per hour in standard definition , also is it the same usage for watching live streaming on iplayer , many thanks

Antispam

well looking at BBC one tonight, bang goes the theory (science program)its one hour program its 643mb, so depending on how much action there is on screen fast moving action can take more data it can be around 600mb-700mb roughly

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p8469/Bang_Goes_the_Theory_The_Human_Power_Station/

streaming for above is 652MB

b33r

The live streaming or using the flash player for catch up will use a lot less bandwidth than downloading. You can tell purely by the quality. I'm not sure what bit rate it is but what you could do is install a bandwidth monitor like this for example (I have never used that, just first result on google). Make sure you are not doing anything else on the net (close messenger, downloads, itunes etc.) then fire up the monitor, watch your programme and see how much data your computer has downloaded

EDIT: Actually this monitor looks better (its free!)

b33r

Antispam wrote: »

streaming for above is 652MB

really? that surprises me a lot, how did you measure it?

Antispam

Its not my measure its what bbc web site said in link I posted. I checked another program and it does the opposite so steaming was less

b33r wrote: »

really? that surprises me a lot, how did you measure it?

b33r

Isn't that figure the download to watch it on your desktop though? I don't think using the flash streaming player on the website will use anywhere near that.

On the topic of downloads though they must be using a terrible compression technology as I download things from 'other sources' that are an hour long and around 350meg and the quality is better than even the download version of BBC programmes.

NeverInDebt

643mb for a hour program is a lot. Probably using a less efficient codec than say h.264

timmmers

I've had streaming TV on for about 14 hours a day (not all iPlayer...and also downloaded and surfed etc ..as usual for me.

Current metered downloads for December total 5,335MBytes for 1st and 2nd december.


If you watch live TV streamed...Iplayer isn't the place really IMO. There are better places

I'd have got less than 10 hrs for that usage on Iplayer ...and far less choice of channels obviously. TVcatchup is free and covers most of the freeview channels quite well.
Apparently their forums suggest they are starting a PVR there one day soon.

The Iplayer downloads are DRM protected and die too don't they?

t