Streaming question

aliasojo

Forgive the basic question but I just want to be absolutely sure of my facts before I go off on one.

When 'streaming' is listed as being a heavy drain on your monthly internet allowance, could the likes of YouTube be to blame? YouTube is streaming?

Also, what would xbox downloading come under...'web' or 'streaming'? (Downloading new content, maps that kind of thing.)

TIA

Fifer

aliasojo wrote: »

Forgive the basic question but I just want to be absolutely sure of my facts before I go off on one.

When 'streaming' is listed as being a heavy drain on your monthly internet allowance, could the likes of YouTube be to blame? YouTube is streaming?

Also, what would xbox downloading come under...'web' or 'streaming'? (Downloading new content, maps that kind of thing.)

TIA

YouTube is streaming but downloading xbox content isn't. Streaming is watching (or listening to) content as it downloads, rather than downloading to save for future use.

However, streaming is downloading (but not all downloading is streaming) if that makes sense. It's not the fact that you are streaming content which makes it a heavy use of your bandwidth, but the fact that streamed video files tend to be large. Downloading a file of the same size to your hard disk would be equally heavy on your usage allowance.

aliasojo

Thank you.

Our 'web' usage looks reasonably proportionate then if that were to include the xbox downloading for example.

The 'streaming' must solely be down to YouTube on the whole (a news video or the like may be watched on the very odd occasion) but by and large it's only YouTube which would be to blame I think.

paddyrg

Don't underestimate how much data watching youtube can consume, especially if you watch at high resolution. 'Normal' youtube (360p quality) uses about 350kbps - so approx 2.5MB every minute! I hope that'll give you an idea of how you can get a big 'streaming' bill from videos :-)

Lifeforms

Gaming itself would use very little, even coupled with an additional program to chat (which ever way is preferred, pc or thro xbox)
Demos, contents, maps, and game downloads would be heavier usage. But not to the extreme of GB's worth, unless they really are downloading games they've bought online. maps and content wouldn't be downloaded all that often, unless they're happening to play 20 odd games each week that are being updated constantly.
Xbox usage,,, I'm not sure where that would show, as in Plus.net which is the ISP I have, they list gaming specifically under usage.

If you're trying to find a culprit of an excess internet use month, you can track what computers are downloading amount wise etc. With details available in the router itself normally.

If you are getting close to maxing out, then it'll be your peak limit that needs a change. Surprising how fast things get used up, from an amount that seems would be plenty. So many things are going HD now, video, streaming, that if you've a family, you fast hit the limit, even more so in holiday times!

Ooh the thing to remember with youtube...
Just because you've clicked play, watched 3 mins of an 8 mins vid, and clicked off, doesn't mean you've only streamed the 3 mins alone. Chances are it'll have already buffered the whole video by that time (downloaded it in essence) already.

grumpycrab

paddyrg wrote: »

so

We're on a 10GB allowance and youtube at this quality is pretty good; iPlayer on the other hand...
(for 1 hour) youtube 360p 150MB
iPlayer SD 600MB
iPlayer HD 1.2GB

Fortunately our "upto 8Meg" connection is crap in the evenings so we don't watch streams very often; if we have too we'll d/l stuff after midnight (no d/l limit with plusnet after midnight.)

m5rcc

There should be no excuse these days to be on a limited plan. One can get unlimited, w/o traffic mgmt, for £4/mth

grumpycrab

m5rcc wrote: »

There should be no excuse these days to be on a limited plan. One can get unlimited, w/o traffic mgmt, for £4/mth

Assuming you can get this anywhere in the country, link please!

m5rcc

grumpycrab wrote: »

Assuming you can get this anywhere in the country, link please!

Offer still exists if you call in

grumpycrab

^ thanks - just rang them and after I gave my number and postcode they said "I'm sorry but you're outside our network area but that's not a problem sir as we can provide our access pakage"

That's great, how much is that - I'm an O2 mobile customer!
"£22.50 per month"

That's a bit more than £4/month.

espresso

m5rcc wrote: »

There should be no excuse these days to be on a limited plan. One can get unlimited, w/o traffic mgmt, for £4/mth

m5rcc wrote: »

Offer still exists if you call in

Factually incorrect as usual. O2 traffic management details here.