How much data is needed for TV streaming?

[RationalWalk]

Shopping for an internet plan for streaming on YouTube TV. The plan I'm looking at has a useage allowance of 400gb/mo. Does anyone know if this is sufficient to support TV streaming on YouTube TV?

[rockstar]

How much TV do you watch now?

My Internet usage is around 500GB a month. Sometimes I’m lower. Sometimes I’m higher.

You might get away with it. What’s your current usage? Are you currently streaming?

How much does it cost if you go over?

I know that YouTube really wants to switch to AV1, which uses less bandwidth, but I don’t think it’s rolled out yet.

[hand]

Consider both amount of streaming and quality of streaming - On most services, you have the ability to control quality and therefore data usage.
An hour of standard definition video uses up to 1GB, an hour of High Def uses up to 3Gb, and an hour of 4K uses up to 7K.

[conservativeinvestor]

our 2 person household with no cable, using only streaming services at 4k most evenings and weekends plus computer usage we are using 500-600gb a month. when we were streaming just normal HD we were at about 350-400gb a month.

without knowing how many people are watching and how much you watch it's hard to say if 400gb will be enough or not.

[RationalWalk]

There is only one person streaming TV and also using computer on internet. The charge for overage is $10 per 50gb.

[bloom2708]

If you are a "The TV is always on" household, you will probably rip through 400GB or more per month.

Both cable internet options have dropped limits or have high 5TB limits in our area.

If you just watch a few hours each night, you'll likely be fine.

[dukeblue219]

If you are a "The TV is always on" household, you will probably rip through 400GB or more per month. [...] If you just watch a few hours each night, you'll likely be fine.

I couldn't have said it better.

[physics911]

This is where my wife and I are with our internet month-to-date.
For whatever it means, we are a fairly normal consumption couple, i.e., work from home and watch some TV in the evenings.
YouTube TV base plan, no bandwidth limiter on the TV.

AT&T FIBER — INTERNET 1000
228GB of Unlimited used
19 days left

[Ace300]

I learned this lesson when I switched to YouTube TV about 18 mos ago.

Have had broadband cable internet for 10+ years, then within ~2mos of switching to YTTV I was notified that I had hit my monthly "1.2TB Data Limit". I didn't even know I had a data limit! In fairness, they did give me a warning when I was at 75% and then 90%, then one month "waiver" of the fee for overage, but beyond that its like $10 for every 50GB you go over.

Family of 4, with 2 boys who love their TV/Streaming, and I work from home. We have 4 TVs, all with Roku boxes, and what I found was that when we shut the TV off while watching YTTV, the Roku box still "streams" in the background even when the TV is off (up until it hits its "timeout limit" which is like 4 hours or something with no action).

So we made a concerted effort to log off YTTV everytime we were shutting down and that has basically saved us, but just beware it eats a lot of data and I don't even have the 4k package.

[bogles the mind]

I learned this lesson when I switched to YouTube TV about 18 mos ago.

Have had broadband cable internet for 10+ years, then within ~2mos of switching to YTTV I was notified that I had hit my monthly "1.2TB Data Limit". I didn't even know I had a data limit! In fairness, they did give me a warning when I was at 75% and then 90%, then one month "waiver" of the fee for overage, but beyond that its like $10 for every 50GB you go over.

Family of 4, with 2 boys who love their TV/Streaming, and I work from home. We have 4 TVs, all with Roku boxes, and what I found was that when we shut the TV off while watching YTTV, the Roku box still "streams" in the background even when the TV is off (up until it hits its "timeout limit" which is like 4 hours or something with no action).

So we made a concerted effort to log off YTTV everytime we were shutting down and that has basically saved us, but just beware it eats a lot of data and I don't even have the 4k package.

There is a power strip that has outlets that turn off when the control device (TV) turns off. Plugging your Roku power supply into one of those outlets will cut the power to it and end streaming. Only downside is when turning back on, it will have to boot up each time. Takes a little longer. Something like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Simply-Conserv ... uf_oAwRMsI

[jebmke]

I learned this lesson when I switched to YouTube TV about 18 mos ago.

Have had broadband cable internet for 10+ years, then within ~2mos of switching to YTTV I was notified that I had hit my monthly "1.2TB Data Limit". I didn't even know I had a data limit! In fairness, they did give me a warning when I was at 75% and then 90%, then one month "waiver" of the fee for overage, but beyond that its like $10 for every 50GB you go over.

Family of 4, with 2 boys who love their TV/Streaming, and I work from home. We have 4 TVs, all with Roku boxes, and what I found was that when we shut the TV off while watching YTTV, the Roku box still "streams" in the background even when the TV is off (up until it hits its "timeout limit" which is like 4 hours or something with no action).

So we made a concerted effort to log off YTTV everytime we were shutting down and that has basically saved us, but just beware it eats a lot of data and I don't even have the 4k package.

There is a power strip that has outlets that turn off when the control device (TV) turns off. Plugging your Roku power supply into one of those outlets will cut the power to it and end streaming. Only downside is when turning back on, it will have to boot up each time. Takes a little longer. Something like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Simply-Conserv ... uf_oAwRMsI

Couple follow ups since I also have Roku. My ISP is not capped but I may also be having continuing streaming from DirectTV streaming.

First: If one clicks the Home button on the Roku remote, it take you back to the Roku home screen (not in a streaming app any longer). I wonder if that shuts down any ongoing streaming by any of the apps installed on the Roku.

Second, an alternative power management approach may be to plug the Roku into a smart plug simply cycle power quickly on the smart plug to re-boot the Roku.

Thoughts?

[MP173]

Is there an internal method to determine how much data is being used by TV streaming and also computers?

We seem to go over the data limit frequently.

At least one TV is on from 5am to 10pm and my computer streams a live feed.

Ed

[rockstar]

Is there an internal method to determine how much data is being used by TV streaming and also computers?

We seem to go over the data limit frequently.

At least one TV is on from 5am to 10pm and my computer streams a live feed.

Ed

Either add a program to your router to collect stats or see if your ISP provides a breakdown.

[bogles the mind]

I learned this lesson when I switched to YouTube TV about 18 mos ago.

Have had broadband cable internet for 10+ years, then within ~2mos of switching to YTTV I was notified that I had hit my monthly "1.2TB Data Limit". I didn't even know I had a data limit! In fairness, they did give me a warning when I was at 75% and then 90%, then one month "waiver" of the fee for overage, but beyond that its like $10 for every 50GB you go over.

Family of 4, with 2 boys who love their TV/Streaming, and I work from home. We have 4 TVs, all with Roku boxes, and what I found was that when we shut the TV off while watching YTTV, the Roku box still "streams" in the background even when the TV is off (up until it hits its "timeout limit" which is like 4 hours or something with no action).

So we made a concerted effort to log off YTTV everytime we were shutting down and that has basically saved us, but just beware it eats a lot of data and I don't even have the 4k package.

There is a power strip that has outlets that turn off when the control device (TV) turns off. Plugging your Roku power supply into one of those outlets will cut the power to it and end streaming. Only downside is when turning back on, it will have to boot up each time. Takes a little longer. Something like this: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Simply-Conserv ... uf_oAwRMsI

Couple follow ups since I also have Roku. My ISP is not capped but I may also be having continuing streaming from DirectTV streaming.

First: If one clicks the Home button on the Roku remote, it take you back to the Roku home screen (not in a streaming app any longer). I wonder if that shuts down any ongoing streaming by any of the apps installed on the Roku.

Second, an alternative power management approach may be to plug the Roku into a smart plug simply cycle power quickly on the smart plug to re-boot the Roku.

Thoughts?

I think going to the home screen does stop data usage. The reason I use the power strip method was at night on the bedroom tv I would set the sleep timer and fall asleep watching a show. Without the power strip it would continue streaming with the tv off. Now I don't care since my cable co. offers unlimited data at all speeds.

[Ace300]

Is there an internal method to determine how much data is being used by TV streaming and also computers?

We seem to go over the data limit frequently.

At least one TV is on from 5am to 10pm and my computer streams a live feed.

Ed

A few years ago (before we switched to YTTV), I set up our house with a eero Mesh Wi-Fi Router. Started working from home and needed much better coverage for where I was taking Zoom calls etc...

Anyway, the Eero app has great data features, including Activity logs etc. I currently have something like 25 Internet connected devices in our house, which are covered by 3 "beacons" we have strategically located. The app shows which devices are connected to which, and how much each has used by day, week, month, etc... That's how I figured out how we hit our 1.2TB limit, because the main TVs that we were using to stream YTTV were showing like 75%+ of the usage, when all the other connected and smart devices, including laptops, phones, tablets, etc...were collectively <25% in the entire month.

[cacophony]

Shopping for an internet plan for streaming on YouTube TV. The plan I'm looking at has a useage allowance of 400gb/mo. Does anyone know if this is sufficient to support TV streaming on YouTube TV?

You sure you're not confusing speed (eg. 400Mbps) with usage allowance? Usage cap is usually around 1.2TB, at least with Xfinity/Comcast.

Whether or not you exceed 400GB a month in usage is going to depend on your viewing habits. It's quite easy to exceed that amount if you watch streaming content for a few hours a day, though it's going to depend on the quality of the stream.

[RationalWalk]

Shopping for an internet plan for streaming on YouTube TV. The plan I'm looking at has a useage allowance of 400gb/mo. Does anyone know if this is sufficient to support TV streaming on YouTube TV?

You sure you're not confusing speed (eg. 400Mbps) with usage allowance? Usage cap is usually around 1.2TB, at least with Xfinity/Comcast.

Whether or not you exceed 400GB a month in usage is going to depend on your viewing habits. It's quite easy to exceed that amount if you watch streaming content for a few hours a day, though it's going to depend on the quality of the stream.

Nope. That's the cap -- pretty miserly I'd say. It's Mediacom, the cappiest cable company there is.

[jebmke]

Shopping for an internet plan for streaming on YouTube TV. The plan I'm looking at has a useage allowance of 400gb/mo. Does anyone know if this is sufficient to support TV streaming on YouTube TV?

You sure you're not confusing speed (eg. 400Mbps) with usage allowance? Usage cap is usually around 1.2TB, at least with Xfinity/Comcast.

Whether or not you exceed 400GB a month in usage is going to depend on your viewing habits. It's quite easy to exceed that amount if you watch streaming content for a few hours a day, though it's going to depend on the quality of the stream.

Nope. That's the cap -- pretty miserly I'd say. It's Mediacom, the cappiest cable company there is.

Sometimes the catapults is the only, unfortunately. In my area, ISPs have a monopoly for their territory. One block north of me is a different and better ISP.

[physics911]

Is there an internal method to determine how much data is being used by TV streaming and also computers?

We seem to go over the data limit frequently.

At least one TV is on from 5am to 10pm and my computer streams a live feed.

Ed

Either add a program to your router to collect stats or see if your ISP provides a breakdown.

+1
Nearly any modern router that you spend more than $80 to $100 on will have a traffic analyzer already built-in.
I use Asus and when I login to the admin console, I can see by either device, or application where all of my traffic and bandwidth is going.
You can also setup what is called QoS (Quality of Service) where you can say you only want X amount of bandwidth available for streaming and Y amount for video conferencing, and so on. Like anything, there will be a learning curve with this if you aren't familiar with it, but YouTube is full of how-to videos, just lookup your router and I'm sure you can find one.

[hvaclorax]

Shopping for an internet plan for streaming on YouTube TV. The plan I'm looking at has a useage allowance of 400gb/mo. Does anyone know if this is sufficient to support TV streaming on YouTube TV?

You sure you're not confusing speed (eg. 400Mbps) with usage allowance? Usage cap is usually around 1.2TB, at least with Xfinity/Comcast.

Whether or not you exceed 400GB a month in usage is going to depend on your viewing habits. It's quite easy to exceed that amount if you watch streaming content for a few hours a day, though it's going to depend on the quality of the stream.

I agree with this idea. My 20Mbs is sufficient for my needs.It has to be because that’s the most I can get in my location. Still I’m able to view high definition video to my audiophile/ videophile tastes.