Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 August 6

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August 6

Is 30Mbps fast enough for video streaming?

I can reliably get 36Mbps download speed on a 4G connection, sometimes it's faster but only rarely slower. Is this good enough for streaming tv services such as Netflix? Getting a fibre service installed in my rented apartment is an expensive hassle I'd prefer to avoid if the 4G would be good enough. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:19, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

30Mbps could well be fast enough, but there could be a fair bit of jitter that will cause your video to buffer or drop out on a stream. 4G does have a much bigger risk of slowing down when shared by others, and this could happen a few months or years later when more people start using the same network in your area. I hope you have unlimited download on your 4G plan, else this could be pricey. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:34, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Most unlimited plans throttle your speed once you go beyond a set amount of data. Every service I have looked at does throttling. I assume that there is one service somewhere that doesn't throttle, so I am saying "most" unlimited plans throttle your speed, but I personally believe it to be "all" unlimited plans throttle your speed. The end result: You start the month being able to stream videos. By the end of the month, you can't stream enything. Then, at the beginning of the next month, you can stream again. My kids understand this well. They know our month starts on the 12th and they can start streaming videos again every 12th. 199.164.8.1 (talk) 12:51, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

The important question is: what sustained rate and quality of service does your video-stream actually yield, on average, from the video stream server? One recurring problem is the invalid assumption that you get the same downlink speed from any internet resource. The modern internet is populated by a very dynamic, diverse variety of content delivery networks and cloud service providers. The actual speed between you and your video provider - especially a commercial service like Youtube or Netflix - depends almost entirely on whether they have installed server capacity at a location that is close to you - close in both the geographical sense, and in the network-topology sense.

Compound this with the extraordinary complexity of modern streaming video technology: most commercial service providers (like Youtube or Netflix) can provide variable resolutions and bit-rates to dynamically adjust the video to the available link speed at the time you're using it. And, because the application and network layers are also subject to provisioning, the available link speed can change in a very unpredictable fashion based on the time of day, the number of users simultaneously requesting the resource, and so on.

Ultimately, you should just test the service to see if it meets your needs. It's not necessarily important whether your service-provider advertises a specific speed, because that speed is unlikely to accurately correspond to the quality of your video playback experience.

Nimur (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Our article DVD-Video says: "DVD-Video discs have a raw bitrate of 11.08 Mbit/s" so if you want comparable image quality to dvd then in theory 11 Mbps should be enough for your needs. In practice I would aim for double that, just so you have a safety margin. 212.178.135.35 (talk) 12:47, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

DVD-Video is a very poor comparison here. Almost no one uses MPEG2 for the video codec for online streaming. So if you only want SD content, your bitrate requirement will be significantly lower. (Ignoring arguments over what bitrate you need for visually similar quality for H264 vs MPEG2 for SD resolutions, the bitrates that will be sent from your provider will be significantly lower.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:51, 11 August 2019 (UTC)