Lightbox high data usage

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christherider

56 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#196068 18-May-2016 10:11

I was staying at a hotel for work recently where I got 1gb free wifi. I started watching Lightbox, and a bit over half way into a 40min show the wifi cut out - I had used all of my data. This surprised me, so I tested it a bit more using my phone's data (wifi tether) and sure enough a 40min show uses well over 1gb. This is pretty surprising and shocking to me - there are no quality settings so you cannot change it, and this seems like extraordinary data usage for a video streaming service in 2016.

Worth being aware that Lightbox is very data hungry, even for a video streaming service.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1554638 18-May-2016 10:17

Their FAQ points this out, though perhaps not as explicitly as some users need:

As our video quality depends on your connection speed, we can’t tell you exactly how much data you’ll burn through.

If you were running at full quality for an hour a day on your home broadband connection, you’d be using around 70 GB per month.
If you were running at full quality using mobile data (3G/4G), you'd be using 1GB per hour.

70GB for 1hr/day for 30 days = ~2.3GB/hour.

christherider

56 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#1554641 18-May-2016 10:19

Yeah I can see this info is on the FAQ, but I didn't read the FAQ before I started streaming, nor is that really the point I'm trying to make.

It uses about twice the bandwidth of Netflix in my experience, and there is no way to manually control the quality (at least on iPad, that I could see).

I also think the FAQ info is a bit optimisitic to be honest.

Jase2985

13459 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1554645 18-May-2016 10:23

As our video quality depends on your connection speed, we can’t tell you exactly how much data you’ll burn through.

If you were running at full quality for an hour a day on your home broadband connection, you’d be using around 70 GB per month.

so 70/30 = 2.3GB per hour or approximately 38mb per minute or about 27mins for 1GB of data.

its all explained on their website. Sucks a little if you are on RBI or have a cap that you cant reduce the quality but that's the model they have chosen to use

trig42

5810 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1554646 18-May-2016 10:24

It is something Lightbox is missing - a setting to change quality down (Netflix has it).

Netflix, by the way, will easily use the same amount of data in full HD.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1554650 18-May-2016 10:32

christherider:

Yeah I can see this info is on the FAQ, but I didn't read the FAQ before I started streaming, nor is that really the point I'm trying to make.

It uses about twice the bandwidth of Netflix in my experience, and there is no way to manually control the quality (at least on iPad, that I could see).

I also think the FAQ info is a bit optimisitic to be honest.

Your point appeared to be about high data usage, more than the lack of manual control, so I apologise if I misinterpreted. But in my experience the data usage across Lightbox and Netflix is relatively similar, given similar conditions (i.e. both in HD etc). Netflix seems to better progressively step down quality to maintain smooth playback, in my opinion, which may result in lower data use on a connection that's borderline for coping with HD perhaps. Netflix themselves say their streams can use up to 3GB per hour for HD and 7GB per hour for Ultra HD.

I agree it would be good for Lightbox to add some sort of user control for this.

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1555422 19-May-2016 11:15

It's easy just to get more data and enjoy the HD streaming. If you aren't on unlimited at home then it's only a few bucks more to go that way.

A hotel connection with 1GB free is miserly, everyone knows what it costs for an unlimited connection even for business. Sure you have to have some infrastructure to deliver it but the NZ model of high charges for limited internet is pretty outdated.

radomatic

93 posts

Master Geek

#1556455 20-May-2016 17:54

I kind of question why Lightbox don't offer the ability to choose your quality (and therefore bitrate and therefore data consumption). The automatic side of it works well - but what about these situations where you might have a high quality connection, but a very limited data pool?

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kaihoka

164 posts

Master Geek

#1562719 31-May-2016 00:15

you can go to options on your chrome browser and adjust quality of video in settings.

you can not adjust it in the app though

mattwnz

20153 posts

Uber Geek

#1562723 31-May-2016 00:21

I believe you can also go into chrome and use the developer tools to change your internet connection speed to a lower speed.