Fire TV 2 is a DATA HOG ! - Fire TV General

Houston! We have a problem.
I sideloaded an App called "Data Counter Widget" from the Google Play Store to the 2nd Generation Fire TV.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.roysolberg.android.datacounter&hl=en
This App is a data usage monitor that shows you real-time usage of apps running within the FireTV. The App can be operated with the remote - requires a few presses of the right and left arrow buttons to get the left-side menu bar to appear. I used a keyboard.
First, I did a test by playing a trailer of Men In Black - its 2 minute HD trailer and it consumed 55 MB. Which is fair.
I reset the stats and started Dolpin Imax 4K documentary and watch until the 5 minute marker (the 4K kicked in at the 28 second marker).
For that 5 min video - the counter went up by 965MB. And if my math is right - it would have consumed close to 12GB per hour.
At the 300GB monthly cap - thats equivalent to 25 hours of 4K video !!!
Is my math wrong?
EDIT +++
Testing the Netflix 4K App on the FTV2 box. Played House of Cards for 5 minutes. It ramped up to 4K in about 6 seconds. It consumed close to 700MB in 5 minutes.

Is that not expected behaviour for 4K size videos?

So, exactly what you would expect then?
Thread title is wrong. Firetv 2 isnt a data hog, 4k video is big, very big.

Yepp, normal bitrates. On the other hand it´s not the ATV which produces this data because it just streams (downloads) this data from your content provider and every other streaming device would produce the same output in your data counter for these videos. It depends on you if a streaming device is a "data hog" or not since most provider do offer other qualities or resolutions for their streams which lower the needed data bandwidth. If you´re concerned about your monthly quota you could choose for older series or movies a lower resolution since they are not really native 4k content and spare up some gigs.

Thanks guys - based on articles I read, HEVC was theoretically rated at around 12 Mbps. The Amazon stream is about 25 Mbps and the Netflix is about 18Mbps
Also, the reason I was pointing the finger at AFTV2 was the a blurb I read somewhere that Amazon tends to cache streams in anticipation of what you are going to watch. So if it caches 4K streams and discards it without using ... that could eat up a significant bandwidth.
I checked the stats this morning ... its been idle through the night for 5 hours - it has consumed 500MB just sitting there. Perhaps its caching videos in anticipation of what I might watch today?

Bless Virgin Media and unlimited internet.

The gen 1 isnt exactly efficient in regards to usage either. I got into a bad habit of leaving netflix or prime on and soon saw i was exceeding a terabyte per month. Concast has a 250 gb cap but thus far havent enforced it in my area. The math goes something like this
Toddler + sesame street in HD = an ISP exec plotting when to profit more from this.
What saves me there is kodi. I have a library of kids movies and tv. When he streams locally it doesnt go against the cap. Unlike watching the same 3 gb movie from netflix 15 to 20 times a month.
Fyi-for netflix you can adjust playback resolution. I find 3 gb per hour to be fine for most videos.

Related

A few questions before I buy a Shift

This really seems like a neato computer, but I have some questions that need to be answered before I buy one:
1. Can I play Counter-strike 1.6/Condition Zero on it? What about Unreal Tournament 2004? What frame rates can I expect?
2. How responsive is the touch pad? I tried the touch pad on another laptop in a local store and it had very annoying input lag.
3. Do you think that 384 kbps would be enough to play CS 1.6 and UT2K4 online? I'm not completely sure if I can get my providers Turbo 3G service on to my sim card. Also, Shift only supports 3.6 and not 7.2 mbit right? Will a 7.2 mbit sim card work in it anyway?
4. Do you think it'd support my Trekstor DVB-T USB stick? The minimum requirement is for it is 800 mhz and DirectX 9 and I really don't like being right on the minimum. I'm guessing that I'm not going to get 800x480 fullscreen tv on it?
5. How good is it with movies and recorded TV shows? Avi, divx, mpeg, wmv etc, can it handle standard definition in full screen? Some quick examples would be avi at 576x320 and wmv at 640x480.
6. Is there any chance I could get a photo of the interpolated 1024x600 side-by-side with a photo of the native 800x480?
Thanks in advance
Do not count on a extreme gaming experience on the shift.
Counterstrike 1.6 might work, with low settings and WindowsXP installed.
Like Quake3 arena plays like a charm
MY cynergy XS USB DVB stick show full screen shows at perfect speed.
Computer is monotask during playing, using anything else will slow thinks to a crawl. But I watch TV shows on widescreen everyday. Main difficulty is to get the antenna to work...
For movies, you can play any size using coreplayer.
Unreal turnament can be palyed also with a reasonable frame rate. You will have to play on low resolution, and will have occasional lags. I suggest you look for another device for intense gaming.
I'm not looking for an extreme gaming experience on a device like this, just something besides surfing the Internet and watching videos, because I can do that just fine with my cellphone.
Was that Quake III Arena video real-time rendered on the Shift or was that just a video? I'm very suspicious because I don't see anything plugged in to the usb port and I don't see him using the touch pad.
Hasn't anyone tried playing CS 1.6/CZ? I don't think they'd be too demanding for the Shift with an 800 mhz processor as the recommended spec. Maybe even Counter-Strike: Source at the lowest settings? It has an 800 mhz minimum.
@thaihugo: The "using anything else" part makes me a bit worried since I'd like to use a card reader as well for the encrypted channels, because here in Sweden we only have one decent free tv channel. That's better than nothing I guess.
You mean UT2K4 right? I didn't see screenshots of it until today and I didn't realise that it had relatively good graphics since I assumed that it had far more primitive graphics than UT3. Definitely worth a try then. I just hope that you didn't mean UT99
Right now what I'm the most curious about is if I can play Counter-strike 1.6/CZ/Source on it, and how responsive the touch pad is. How noticeable is the delay on the touch pad? I don't expect it to be good enough for a twitch shooter but it'd be nice if it's quick and precise enough for surfing without using the touch screen to click on everything.
Shift is not that powerfull
if you are interested in gaming the everun note may be a choice for you. www.umpcportal.com has tested it a few days ago. But it has probably a less responsive touchscreen.

[Q] Much higher youtube usage

I have compared android version 4.2.2 (s4) with 4.1.2 (note2). Both sets are using the LTE technology. I have tested on both device by running a similar length of HD youtube video via the default youtube given by respective phone. However, i found out something surprising.
4.2.2 uses 100MB of the data usage for just 5.44min HD youtube video while
4.1.2 uses just merely 20+MB of the data usage for similiar HD youtube video.
Hence, my question is why the amount of data usage used by 2 different phone varies so much?
I'm just very curious why does such things happen.
I ask such question because my android usage is very high, currently at 1.73GB within 2.5 weeks of my monthly plan. I reckon it could be synchronizing my contacts, facebook and twitter. There was once when i downloaded foursquare using wifi. When i clicked and opened the foursquare app, it instantly uses up 0.95GB of my dataplan.
It's a worrying factor as you know service providers are rather stingy with their LTE data plans.
Cheers.
Because Galaxy S4 has a full HD Screen, the HD Video on Youtube plays at 1080p while Note II one plays at 720p for HD since screen is 720p.
However, there should only be about twice the size difference.
psycovirus said:
Because Galaxy S4 has a full HD Screen, the HD Video on Youtube plays at 1080p while Note II one plays at 720p for HD since screen is 720p.
However, there should only be about twice the size difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have either of you noticed the lag associated YouTube. Seems while watching a video it stutters a fair bit at times. Can anyone confirm?

Video recording question

I'd like to use my Note to record a mini training session (on the computer monitor). I guess I'd be recording about 1-2 feet from the screen for a total of 20 minutes. I think it's far enough to be able to still read the words on the monitor.
Anyway, I tested out the recording options and here's what I found so far:
3840x2160 for 20 seconds of recording is 130 MB (~400MB/min of recording)
1280x720 for 1 minute of recording is 92.5 MB (~90MB/min of recording)
The next lowest resolution is 320x240. This would be great for memory but the resolution is so bad that I can't see the monitor clearly.
So for roughly 20 minutes of recording a tutorial, with storage space being of some concern, I would have to go for 1280x720. This would equate to about 2 gigs of space for 20 minutes. This seems rather high since DVD movies are about 2-8 gig for 1.5-2 hours. Or am I comparing apples to oranges.
Do you guys have a better solution on what video settings I should use or maybe there's something that I haven't figured out yet?
first of all DVD has 720x480 (480p) resolution, less if it's wide screen, so Note 3 1280x720 (720p) will take more space since it has more data. Also compressing video on the fly is more difficult, since you have to do it in specific time, before you fill up buffer with following frames, so it's less efficient.
Now for solutions:
1. get micro SD card, they're really not that expensive, just make sure it's x10 speed. They even have 128GB albeit those are expensive.
2. recode video at higher compression rate later on your computer
3. resize the video from 720p to 480p on the computer since Note3 does not support 480p resolution, but it could be best balance between size and quality, but this could be tricky quality wise, since every time you uncompress and compress video you loose detail.
I would say: install screen recording software on your pc, that will give you the best quality.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using xda app-developers app
gschot said:
I would say: install screen recording software on your pc, that will give you the best quality.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed and filesize will be lower as its optimal.
And please for godssake dont video-record a screen, its just awefull to watch. Can't stress that fact enough. Just DON'T!
(Google for screen recorder)

Netflix HD not working after OTA?

*edit for those of you joining late* The issue is getting a netflix HD stream to the internal display. Currently we get SD streams unless we use external displays.
After the latest OTA update we were supposed to gain access to 1080p Netflix streaming right? Well, how exactly do we get that? I've been monitoring bandwidth and my TN7 while streaming still only uses about 1mbit/s which is definitely not a 1080p stream, but is also indicative of the tablet not even trying higher quality streams. I'm using the stock Netflix app, along with openvpn connect (the other end of the VPN is a gigabit box in the US and is definitely capable of that speed reliably), my local connection is 70mbit down reliably and my wifi AP is an Asus RT-N66U a few feet away.
I've gone and cleared the Netflix app's data but that doesn't seem to have fixed it, any thoughts on what else I can try?
CampGareth said:
After the latest OTA update we were supposed to gain access to 1080p Netflix streaming right? Well, how exactly do we get that? I've been monitoring bandwidth and my TN7 while streaming still only uses about 1mbit/s which is definitely not a 1080p stream, but is also indicative of the tablet not even trying higher quality streams. I'm using the stock Netflix app, along with openvpn connect (the other end of the VPN is a gigabit box in the US and is definitely capable of that speed reliably), my local connection is 70mbit down reliably and my wifi AP is an Asus RT-N66U a few feet away.
I've gone and cleared the Netflix app's data but that doesn't seem to have fixed it, any thoughts on what else I can try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1080p output is only for when you have it outputing from hdmi to your tv, the tablet is only 720 so it makes sense it wouldn't try to download a bigger stream then needed
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
ckavvouras said:
1080p output is only for when you have it outputing from hdmi to your tv, the tablet is only 720 so it makes sense it wouldn't try to download a bigger stream then needed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While that's true, there's a heckuva difference between the SD streams and any HD stream. As far as I can tell the tablet tops out at what would be low quality SD on a desktop, even on the built in screen it's possible to see more detail than we're getting. (Note identified streams are mobile, low quality SD, high quality SD, and HD).
Anyway, any thoughts on getting a HD stream to the internal display?
CampGareth said:
While that's true, there's a heckuva difference between the SD streams and any HD stream. As far as I can tell the tablet tops out at what would be low quality SD on a desktop, even on the built in screen it's possible to see more detail than we're getting. (Note identified streams are mobile, low quality SD, high quality SD, and HD).
Anyway, any thoughts on getting a HD stream to the internal display?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm fairly certain that I'm getting 720 on my tablet, the image is clean and detailed, maybe your problem is with your router or your internet connection. I tried to capture it but for some reason it keeps telling me sd card is in use.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
ckavvouras said:
I'm fairly certain that I'm getting 720 on my tablet, the image is clean and detailed, maybe your problem is with your router or your internet connection. I tried to capture it but for some reason it keeps telling me sd card is in use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mmhmm, I've gone ahead and done some bandwidth monitoring, see the screenshots attached. While watching the avengers with HD streams turned on average usage is 4-6mbps, with SD only it's about 3-4mbps, with the tablet in use and left to stream for a few minutes it's more like 1-2mbps. The desktop I'm using is wired, the tablet is connected to the same switch/AP the desktop is using (asus rt-n66u, 3 feet away through a table).
The CPU load is probably worth testing since the desktop has far more power for openvpn and such, 2.6 or so staring at the netflix home screen, 3.5-4 with a stream going, given the number of cores that's still a little lower than full load.
So, yeah, still not sure what the cause is, doesn't seem to be a problem anywhere...
http://imgur.com/a/FfN3C#0 *edit* I trust vnstat running on the VPN endpoint itself far more than I trust pfsense, so much stuff could be interfering there
Well how much bandwidth your using on pc vs tablet won't tell you much imo, both use different types of compression to stream that why you might be having varying results. I personally know that I'm at least getting 720p in my tablet, maybe there is a way to force it to stream at a higher resolution but I don't know of it.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

YouTube streaming issues

Since buying the phone (couple weeks ago), I haven't been able to steam any videos on HD (720P and above) without the video buffering numerous times. I streamed movies from Google Play Movies and Netflix. I don't know if the resolution is going down to allow me to stream the videos, but I'm getting very frustrated. My LTE is full, never had a problem in my area with other phones. It's hardly better on Wi-Fi
Padfoot926 said:
Since buying the phone (couple weeks ago), I haven't been able to steam any videos on HD (720P and above) without the video buffering numerous times. I streamed movies from Google Play Movies and Netflix. I don't know if the resolution is going down to allow me to stream the videos, but I'm getting very frustrated. My LTE is full, never had a problem in my area with other phones. It's hardly better on Wi-Fi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any one have any ideas?

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