olearado lynette lataria
Cris Luczak
The most believable numbers I've found are 1.5Mbps for SD, 3Mbps for DVD quality, 5Mbps for HD quality and 8+ for 1080 on PS3. I don't see Netflix offering official numbers, but playing with Speedtest.net and testing by adding bandwidth eaters like VPN connections until I saw the quality degrade.
While I couldn't find any hard numbers on Netflix's site, it seems the consensus is that as long as you have a decent DSL connection 1.5 Mbs, you should be able to stream successfully (there might be a decent amount of buffering though).Source
I do not personally have Netflix, but my aunt does (the standard definition version through a Wii) and she has no problem watching movies with connection speed that hovers between 700 Kbps and 900 Kbps (tested at Speakeasy.net). I was actually surprised that video playback didn't lag with speeds that low, but there it is.
We have a 1.5/10 Mb connection and see neflix eat as much bandwith as it can get. Not uncommon for it to be using 9mb on HD programs over our xbox 360. However if there is anyother machines online it will kick back to less and change the quality of the stream...
This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer, to tell our members in Canada that starting today, watching movies and TV shows streaming from Netflix will use 2/3 less data on average, with minimal impact to video quality.
I ran the Activity Monitor app on my MacBook Pro while simultaneously streaming Netflix on 4 devices on my home wifi (my MacBook Pro, an iPhone 5, an iPhone 4 and a smart TV upstairs). The total data rate never got higher than 709 kbps (less than 1 Mbps) and on average it stayed around 200-300 kbps. All devices were streaming flawlessly. I even called Comcast on my VOIP phone and the bandwidth usage stayed the same.
To my knowledge, the Activity Monitor shows bandwidth used by the wifi network as a whole (which was what I was interested in), not the individual devices. You see, I am using Comcast "High-speed Internet." How fast is that? They don't say, but apparently I am also getting their Blast service which gives me "up to" 50 Mbps. Wow, right? Except why do I need that kind of speed? Or more to the point: why do I need to PAY for that speed? Or even more to the point: do I ever actually get that speed? I'm not a gamer, though I wonder if I was, would I still need that kind of bandwidth?
Video streaming is the next big thing in the entertainment industry. More people are getting a soft spot for streaming videos and audios. At the same time, companies like Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify are offering on-demand streaming services to meet this demand. The good thing is that you are not limited to using your laptop or tablet while streaming; you can also use your phone. Unfortunately, streaming uses loads of data in an era where internet data allowances are a reality. While some consumers have devised ways to stream videos and audios data-effectively, others have limited the service to prevent their internet bill from getting out of hand.
Imagine you just signed up for Netflix to catch the latest blockbuster movies and series. You can't wait to watch the latest releases ranging from Bird Box to Apostle and Triple Frontier. You start streaming the Vietnam War drama Full Metal Jacket while your sister in the other room is streaming a romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love on her iPhone. Suddenly you receive a notification that you are running out of data.
Let's start with the fun facts. First, data is not free and video uses a lot of data. Therefore, because you are streaming video on Netflix, you definitely use a lot of data. Second, your internet provider is in business to make money. That means that there's a probability of a cap in the data you use monthly and extra charges for surpassing the set amount. This causes headaches for Netflix subscribers who would like to watch much content but are limited by their data and avoidance of extra charges. Buckeye Broadband can eliminate these headaches by offering you data plans that meet your streaming needs - including unlimited data.
The question that follows is 'how much data does Netflix use?' The answer is simple 'it depends.' It depends on two principle things namely the length of the film you are watching and the resolution you are using. Watching a show that takes 30 minutes does not use the same amount of data as watching a 2 hours long movie. The longer the film, the more data you use. The resolution you use also affects the amount of data you use. According to Netflix, you use about 1GB of data per hour for streaming a TV show or movie in standard definition and up to 3GB of data per hour when streaming HD video.
Nevertheless, you can change the data usage settings in your Netflix account to reduce the bandwidth Netflix uses and hence lower data consumption. Netflix offers four data usage options discussed below.
One cool thing about Netflix is that you don't have to always stream your movies and shows. You can download content and view it later when offline. This saves you a huge chunk of data. The download option and view later is available on both Android and iOS Netflix apps. However, this feature is not without a catch. You can only download specific content including but not limited to Orange is the New Black, To Kill a Mocking Bird and Stranger Things. The good thing is that downloadable content is a mix of contemporary and classic films in different genres. If you can't get enough of the series Scandal or Jane the virgin, just download it and you can re-watch it ten times.
With Netflix's download option, you can never get bored. Your phone becomes a portable TV and you can watch films on your long car ride, boring flights, or just spend the whole night on the sofa. How do you download a movie on Netflix? It's simple; use your Netflix app that is available for Android and iOS. You can also use the Netflix app for Windows 10 on your laptop. Open the Netflix app, choose the download quality and choose the download option (where available). Lastly, enjoy your offline viewing.
In the current digital age, prolific media streaming is the order of the day. Netflix is leading the pack by offering numerous movies and series that you can stream and download. Unfortunately, the current age also comes with capped data packages for home internet users. This makes it necessary to know how much data Netflix uses when streaming movies and TV shows.
I pulled this chapter together from dozens of sources that were at times somewhat contradictory. Facts on the ground change over time and depend who is telling the story and what audience they're addressing. I tried to create as coherent a narrative as I could. If there are any errors I'd be more than happy to fix them. Keep in mind this article is not a technical deep dive. It's a big picture type article. For example, I don't mention the word microservice even once :-)
Given our discussion in the What is Cloud Computing? chapter, you might expect Netflix to serve video using AWS. Press play in a Netflix application and video stored in S3 would be streamed from S3, over the internet, directly to your device.
Another relevant factoid is Netflix is subscription based. Members pay Netflix monthly and can cancel at any time. When you press play to chill on Netflix, it had better work. Unhappy members unsubscribe.
The client is the user interface on any device used to browse and play Netflix videos. It could be an app on your iPhone, a website on your desktop computer, or even an app on your Smart TV. Netflix controls each and every client for each and every device.
Everything that happens before you hit play happens in the backend, which runs in AWS. That includes things like preparing all new incoming video and handling requests from all apps, websites, TVs, and other devices.
In 2007 Netflix introduced their streaming video-on-demand service that allowed subscribers to stream television series and films via the Netflix website on personal computers, or the Netflix software on a variety of supported platforms, including smartphones and tablets, digital media players, video game consoles, and smart TVs.
Netflix succeeded. Netflix certainly executed well, but they were late to the game, and that helped them. By 2007 the internet was fast enough and cheap enough to support streaming video services. That was never the case before. The addition of fast, low-cost mobile bandwidth and the introduction of powerful mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, has made it easier and cheaper for anyone to stream video at any time from anywhere. Timing is everything.
Building out a datacenter is a lot of work. Ordering equipment takes a long time. Installing and getting all the equipment working takes a long time. And as soon they got everything working they would run out of capacity, and the whole process had to start over again.
The long lead times for equipment forced Netflix to adopt what is known as a vertical scaling strategy. Netflix made big programs that ran on big computers. This approach is called building a monolith. One program did everything.
What Netflix was good at was delivering video to their members. Netflix would rather concentrate on getting better at delivering video rather than getting better at building datacenters. Building datacenters was not a competitive advantage for Netflix, delivering video is.
It took more than eight years for Netflix to complete the process of moving from their own datacenters to AWS. During that period Netflix grew its number of streaming customers eightfold. Netflix now runs on several hundred thousand EC2 instances.
The advantage of having three regions is that any one region can fail, and the other regions will step in handle all the members in the failed region. When a region fails, Netflix calls this evacuating a region.
The header image is meant to intrigue you, to draw you into selecting a video. The idea is the more compelling the header image, the more likely you are to watch a video. And the more videos you watch, the less likely you are to unsubscribe from Netflix.
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