Watch movies on Web?

[monkey44]

We have only a hotspot ... and 5G a month (but could get more)

If we want to watch a movie - order one - it will take a lot of our allowance? Is that correct?

We asked this once before - but tech changes occur so fast, we're wondering if we 'download' and then watch a movie, or if the hotspot is active the entire time, and so it uses a lot of the 5G?

Can someone explain exactly how the movie thing works on a hotspot? And if it's practical to watch very often on the LT or PC under these conditions -

It's not worth it for one / two a month, and use all our hotspot, but if there's a way to do it effectively and efficiently, let us know.

We do Red Box occasionally, but that's not always convenient, or a pain to go out daily ... especially when we camp far from towns, usually.

[2oldman]

Perhaps digital movies are not for you.

[monkey44]

OP back - Just to follow up here ...

Seems like we need to buy a lot of data to make use of any movie type service. We don't have Satellite, so were looking for an option for some nights in the CG - when just sitting around. The RED BOX works okay sometimes, but it appears not very current (And often not very close for a trip to get and a trip to return), or maybe just not many good interesting movies out there.

We were hoping to find some better quality shows in some download services - but it seems too expensive for what you get. If we get 5G for $50 (which we do) that means - based on input here - that an hour is about 1G, so that means about $10 per one hour show. Haven't seen much that's worth $10 today, or even $20 for a two-hour movie. Can go see one at the movie house for $8 if we do seniors afternoon prices. I know, it's not a convenient night in CG, but still not worth that price...

Could easily use up my entire fuel budget for the month 🙂 🙂

The digital revolution - cell, streaming, satellite, cable, sure blew up over its comparatively short life. The costs equate to much higher based on the costs of the entertainment it replaces (and it often lacks quality too) ... maybe we're too old-fashioned, but we believe an hour of work for just an hour of entertainment is not an equal value exchange.

[wa8yxm]

MPG level 2 is 1 gig per hour at the lowest resolution (That is skipping every other pixel basically, When expanded you won't notice it but if you do not have the right CODEC on your viewer it comes out half width).

MPG Level 4 which is the current "Standard" is more economical But that said.. You can easily put an hour's video in a quarter Gig. I do not think I have any handy to look at just now for file size, but the bottom line is this:

You use a LOT of data. Here are some "Stats" for one hour internet TV show.

Episode 61 (High Def 1.55 GB)

Episode 61 (Large 575 MB - H.264 - MP4 - iPod) This is what I tink Netflix et-al use.

Episode 61 (Large 420 MB -Windows Media)

Episode 61 (Small 123 MB - Windows Media)

Episode 61 (AUDIO Podcast 66.9 MB MP3)

[MrWizard]

BINGO...
No cellular data plan needed

[W4RLR]

We use a DirecTV DVR and download a lot of content, saving it to the DVR. We have lots of programming we never see at home when we're on the road, we just take the DVR with us.

[2oldman]

I watch old Hawaii 5-0 TV episodes regularly on streaming Netflix.

Now, this is a rough estimate - because I can't remember if I watch a whole episode at once-, but a one-hour episode uses 200MB, or .20 gig. It's not true HD that I'm aware of, so that accounts for the comparatively small data footprint. I watch on my Droid Razr, and picture looks terrific.

[docj]

MrWizard wrote:
with Netflix, or Hulu, Amazon or other "STREAMING" website services

the video is streamed, its 'live' its Not downloaded
with Amazon you can choose SD or HD, SD uses less data

Netflix will let you set it your preferences/settings, so if you choose lower quality it uses less data
also if your connection is slow, netflix will automatically reduce to a lower setting, to keep the movie streaming, and do as little 'buffering' as possible

amazon and redbox will let you 'buy' a movie
a buy is downloaded to your device/pc
streaming subscriptions like netflix are continuous streams watched live, not downloaded,

and yes 5 gigs is not much, 2 or 3 movies will use most if NOT all of it

We stream a lot of video and have found that with Netflix our actual usage is more like 1GB/2hrs which means that a movie is roughly a GB. Quite a bit of Netflix content does not stream in HD regardless of your account settings. We watch a lot of foreign crime series and most of them appear to have been filmed in SD.

[monkey44]

MrWizard wrote:
with Netflix, or Hulu, Amazon or other "STREAMING" website services

the video is streamed, its 'live' its Not downloaded
with Amazon you can choose SD or HD, SD uses less data

Netflix will let you set it your preferences/settings, so if you choose lower quality it uses less data
also if your connection is slow, netflix will automatically reduce to a lower setting, to keep the movie streaming, and do as little 'buffering' as possible

amazon and redbox will let you 'buy' a movie
a buy is downloaded to your device/pc
streaming subscriptions like netflix are continuous streams watched live, not downloaded,

and yes 5 gigs is not much, 2 or 3 movies will use most if NOT all of it

Yes, thanks WIZARD. That's what we thought ... but things change so often, just need to check it occasionally.

[MrWizard]

with Netflix, or Hulu, Amazon or other "STREAMING" website services

the video is streamed, its 'live' its Not downloaded
with Amazon you can choose SD or HD, SD uses less data

Netflix will let you set it your preferences/settings, so if you choose lower quality it uses less data
also if your connection is slow, netflix will automatically reduce to a lower setting, to keep the movie streaming, and do as little 'buffering' as possible

amazon and redbox will let you 'buy' a movie
a buy is downloaded to your device/pc
streaming subscriptions like netflix are continuous streams watched live, not downloaded,

and yes 5 gigs is not much, 2 or 3 movies will use most if NOT all of it

[RoyB]

OOPS

[RoyB]

If we was going to watch alot of TV SHOWs and MOVIES from the internet we would sign up for the MILLENICON NETWORK HOTSPOT that uses the 20GB MIFI unit. This uses the VERIZON NETWORK which has the best coverage across the US.

My VERIZON MIFI unit is an older unit and I ran out of my 3GB dataplan just watching a few hours of downstreaming TV signals.

If we just check our emails, pay bills, chat some with the kids, and do very minimal surfing of the internet the 3GB monthly Verizon Dataplan works great for us...

Roy Ken

[Ka_Ron]

A movie whether streaming or download should run about 1GB per hour I have heard