Should BBC iPlayer be streaming at over 800 MB per hour?

Kernel_Sanders

After watching a programme on the iPlayer, I noticed a huge amount of my remaining data had disappeared. I thought I must have streamed on 'normal bandwith' by mistake so, on my next session, I ensured I was on 'lower'. After 6 minutes I checked usage and it had taken 83MB. I'm sure there weren't any major updates going on in the background, so what is happening and how can I reduce it? I'm on a PC running Windows with 3 mobile broadband..

pathtofreedom

It depends if you were watching in HD quality or not, but doesn't sound unreasonable to me even if it wasn't really.

stator

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

After watching a programme on the iPlayer, I noticed a huge amount of my remaining data had disappeared. I thought I must have streamed on 'normal bandwith' by mistake so, on my next session, I ensured I was on 'lower'. After 6 minutes I checked usage and it had taken 83MB. I'm sure there weren't any major updates going on in the background, so what is happening and how can I reduce it? I'm on a PC running Windows with 3 mobile broadband..

How much data will watching BBC iPlayer use?


Here are some file size estimates. You can use these to calculate how much data you might be using when watching or listening to BBC programmes over 3G.
TV


30 minutes of video may consume between 25MB and 175MB of data depending on your available connection speed.
60 minutes of video may consume between 50MB and 350MB of data depending on your available connection speed.

10mb per minute would seem to be too high.

Kernel_Sanders

stator wrote: »

10mb per minute would seem to be too high.

It's actually 14 MB per minute (10mb per minute equates to an early broadband speed of 170 Kb/s).
The bit you have quoted about BBCiPlayer is also nonsense; file sizes are not affected by the available connection speed.

thescouselander

Sounds about right to me. We watch a lot of streamed tv and get through about 5 GB a day.

agrinnall

If you're doing much streaming it's best to be on an unlimited tariff, you can chew through an awful lot of bandwidth. I haven't checked for a while but last time I did I'd used over 100GB in a month, easily done when catching up on a whole series on Netflix (Breaking Bad, House and House of Cards so far, now on The Good Wife).

esuhl

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

After 6 minutes I checked usage and it had taken 83MB.

Is it possible that the BBC streaming service caches content? So it may have downloaded more than 6 minutes' worth of video to reduce the chance of buffering issues...?

Nilrem

esuhl wrote: »

Is it possible that the BBC streaming service caches content? So it may have downloaded more than 6 minutes' worth of video to reduce the chance of buffering issues...?

That is quite possible.

However even without caching streaming can be very bandwidth intensive.

Nada666

Why do you want to reduce it? You cannot realistically stream television on a metered connection. (It's one of the stupidest claims of 4G - what's the point of highlighting speed if unlimited data is not available?)

Most providers don't offer much more than 12GB or 15GB a month - completely useless for streaming video.

(Mind you, there are still fixed ADSL providers offering 2GB plans so it isn't just phone providers.)

paddyrg

Just to add to the mix as a technology pedant, most 'streaming' is actually 'progressive download', frequently with advance caches as mentioned. The BBC players can respond and send the progressive download most suited to your connection and screen size, so theoretically can save data usage by watching in a smaller window (not much, in the scheme of things, it's not a linear progression).

Actual near-live streaming is probably more bandwidth and data hungry per identical quality as in order for the stream to encode and render in as-live time, they have to have relatively light compression (eg the compressor cannot look-ahead for p-frames). 800MB sounds on the larger side of 'about right', could be explained by background activity, too.

Kernel_Sanders

esuhl wrote: »

Is it possible that the BBC streaming service caches content? So it may have downloaded more than 6 minutes' worth of video to reduce the chance of buffering issues...?

Nilrem wrote: »

That is quite possible.

I think you may have hit on the answer there, as it also explains my experience last night. I was streaming a programme which straddled midnight, which happened to be the time of the month that 3 replenish my mobile broadband with 5120MB (Every time I've tested, it has always arrived on the stroke of midnight on the 12th). I stopped streaming at 00.36 this morning when the programme ended, and switched off the PC. Now, the remaining allowance on 'My 3 account' can sometimes be several hours out of date, but because of the recent replenishment I knew that the remaining allowance of 5100MB this morning must be correct, meaning I had apparently only consumed 20MB for 36 minutes of streaming - something which would otherwise be impossible.
This is vital information for people streaming at the end of their month because it means they could easily go over their allowance without realizing it. And at the extortionate rate of over 10p per MB that 3 charge, that could be very expensive indeed.