For those that have been actively using TVE for a full billing cycle, I'm curious what your data usage has been like? Are you able to compare to pre-TVE usage and guesstimate how much more data you are using? I've got a cap and already use about 80% of it without TVE.
We use only sparingly (Data Cap is 1TB) right now and as expected our usage has increased. However, prior to TVE we usually used ~500GB...so we have lots of room.
We’ll increase usage as time goes on and I fix my streaming pixellation (problems only on TVE channels).
You use 500MB per month? I have a 1TB cap as well and my current usage is roughly 800GB per month. So I am very curious what a month of serious TVE usage would incur data wise.
We don’t have a lot of household users, although my husband has finally woken up to the fact that he was missing a lot by not streaming. (Only 3-5 weeks ago).
Now, he’s a GB hog and I am monitoring his usage carefully to ensure, he doesn’t eat up the comfortable 500gb shortfall (cushion), we did have. He’s a 24/7 TV watcher (retired) and obviously that is not unacceptable.
Hence, I don’t even have a full month of data with his TOTAL usage.
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If you have an Xfinity 1TB plan you can set notifications when you exceed certaing percentages.
You also get two months grace period for exceeding 1TB before being charged.
http://dataplan.xfinity.com/tools/
Thanks. I do have notifications set, but still would like to get a sense of what a month of using TVE would use.
A rough estimate would be to look at the size of your recordings and figure the number of GB per hour.
If 1.6 GB/hr (for 4mb/s stream), then it would take over 600 hrs a month to hit 1 TB (1,024GB / 1.6GB)
My billing statement shows 4612GB for July, which is more than 3 times the previous month. And the majority of what I record is OTA. I don't think that is all from TVE, though... my wife doesn't even use Channels, she mostly streams foreign TV shows through other apps. But, I can't imagine continuously recording TVE for a whole month without hitting a 1TB limit. I would get rid of that limit. TVE is a lot lower bitrate than OTA though, so the file sizes are significantly smaller.... I suppose for anyone with a limit it depends on how much you use.
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Thanks for info on bitrate diff of TVE (lower) vs OTA. Lends support to tests I am doing on low powered NAS.
I would think it uses 2 to 2.5 GB an hour
BTW:
Do you happen to know about TVE vs Cable for same channel.
It’s another datapoint that I’m really, really interested in determining.
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1 TB gets eaten pretty fast if you also have Prime or Netflix and TVE.
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Yeah...just see my post above re: Husband. 24/7 TV watcher.
Figure, only just his use will be 1.6TB a month.
BTW: Before any of you decide to jump my case about “monitoring” his usage. Not limiting at all, just “watching” carefully.
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Correction...not MB, GB. Sorry
Stats per my Fire TVs average 3500 mbps for TVE. OTA can be anywhere between 2800 to 13500. If you need more stats let me know
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I'm always way over 1TB. I went ahead and got rid of my purchased modem and rent the comcast one for $15 a month with their "Xfinity Advantage" to get rid of the cap for the lowest price I could. I also upgraded to Gigabit internet in the process.
I don't think Gigabit has a data cap. I know I definitely don't have any cap. Am regularly over 1TB and have never been charged. And I don't rent a comcast modem either.
Noticing Sport channels stream at a Higher bitrate ESPN can push 8500 mbps(only one I’m seeing that does 60fps) where Fs1 and Nbcsn hits around 5000
It depends on your region. I was originally told that I would have no cap on gigbit but the customer service rep was uninformed.
Its times like this I appreciate my small regional fiber internet with no data caps.