Data usage comparison

I think we all need to realize, if we don’t know it already, that there are those among us who want to help (here’s what worked for me, I had that same problem, too), and those who feel it necessary to belittle/bully others (do a search, haven’t you heard of Google). Thank those who help; ignore those with the attitudes.

I tried to keep the question as simple as possible. Guy watches a half hour of "Happy Days" on his android phone or uses it as a hotspot with his ROKU to watch the same episode on his 32 inch tv. Is there a big difference in terms of data usage? Doesn't matter if he has a 10 gb plan or a 100 gb plan. How much simpler can I get?

(If people do not have an opinion or real knowledge, telling others to "Do a search, dummy" is worthless. One could reply to every question that is posted on the forums and tell them to "Do a search". Really, do people think that others are that stupid"? I like lots of answers. Some from real people and others from Google. I might learn something that way. Google has been around for at least twenty years and I think most of us have heard of it.)

Well, maybe you'll critique my answer too, and then we can block each other.

Since you haven't told us what phone plan you have no one can give you any meaningful help. It's not clear if you're asking about the difference in bitrate between the two streams or if you're inquiring about a potential difference in how each method would impact a data consumption cap.

Most plans differentiate between data used onboard vs data shared via the hotspot function.

Refine your question and we can help you more. But with all your experience, you know that, right? Civility on forums is a two way street.

Another complication is some phone plans let you watch unlimited video on the phone... not sure if they are able to detect screen mirroring and count that outside the unlimited part.

2oldman wrote:

I'll put you on the 'never provide links' list.

Why do you assume that a person with thirty years experience with computers does not know how to do a search? People that ask questions about Streaming, Data, and ROKU, probably know how to type into a search engine. If you don't know the answer, don't try to answer it by telling people to "Do a search". That is plain insulting, which may be your goal? Glad that you discovered "Google".

And people ask why the forum is losing posts.

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TomG2 wrote:
Googled that and a whole lot more...

Why do people who look things up before asking here never provide that bit of information first? I thought the answer might be a bit more complicated than what gets explained, and argued about, on here. And since you already did what I provided for you, apparently you did too.

I'll put you on the 'never provide links' list. You were already on the 'no generator discussion' list.

what resolution TV ? 1080P or 4K

the phone might be near 1080P and could be less

also many sites automatically stream a lower RES picture to the phone

could be a small difference or a huge difference, in the amount of data use

probably the best way to get the lowest amount of data use per movie
is to stream them 'ON THE PHONE' then cable to the TV to use the cast/mirror function to send the phone display to the TV via wifi or bluetooth

TomG2 wrote:
One would guess that it would take less data to fill a four inch screen than a 32, but guessing always gets me in trouble.

Inches don't matter. Pixels and color per pixel are filled by the data. Resolution try to make it simple, but loses facts.