BBC IPlayer and the like

I have had quite a few letters from Sky/BBC and some others about their IPlayer type equipment. I have tried asking around about Bandwidth but can't get an answer that I really understand.

I have tried the meter from this site but again I do not really Know what to look for and after reading the forum on the meter I am more confused.

I would like to know the following, if I wanted to watch a game of rugby in HD from the BBC
IPlayer and the program lasted 2hrs how much bandwith would I be likely to use?

I get 16GB per month from BT with my Option. Thank you for any help.

D. Hughes

You don't get HD from BBC iPlayer. You do get higher quality if your speed can support it. I am on a capped 8Mbps and have no problem. I think it averages out at around 3Mbps.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

You don't get HD from BBC iPlayer. You do get higher quality if your speed can support it. I am on a capped 8Mbps and have no problem. I think it averages out at around 3Mbps.

So, to expand sligtly on Gomezz's response -

3Mbps = 180Mb per minute. 8Mb (mega bits) = 1MB (mega byte - which is what download is measured in).
So, 180Mb = 22.5MB per minute
2 hours = 120 minutes. 22.5 * 120 = 2700MB.
1GB = 1000MB (although it could be measured as 1024MB depending on what units are being used, but lets use 1000 as it is close enough anyway.
So, 2700MB = 2.7GB.
So, 2 hours viewing at 3Mbps is about 2.7GB of download data.

Different services will have different stream rates and they could change during the stream (iplayer does this if it notices that there is more/less bandwidth available).

Edited by ian72 (Tue 23-Nov-10 11:07:39)

From http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/playing_t...

We use h.264 with a bitrate of 3.2Mbps

So,

"HD" (ie, 720p)

3.2Mb\sec * 60 Seconds * 60 Minutes * 2 Hours = 23040Mb

Convert to MB = 2812.5MB

Convert to GB = 2.75GB

(calculator at http://www.ibeast.com/content/tools/band-calc.asp)