[jacmyoung]

I have ATT Uverse at up to 10mpbs, in the past downloading HD VOD takes about 1/3 into the download before watching it non stop to the end, last night I did one Smith HD show, it started in the yellow from the beginning, and I noticed it and clocked it, it was indeed downloading faster than it played.

Did something change? I know my Internet speed did not, always right around 9600mbps on the meter.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Interesting. My download speeds are usually about 1.5x real time, but in the last week, trying to get all 15 episodes of Mad Men, I noticed that they were more like .75x real time.

FYI my rated download speeds at speedtest.net are always about 2700.

 

[georgewells]

Interesting. My download speeds are usually about 1.5x real time, but in the last week, trying to get all 15 episodes of Mad Men, I noticed that they were more like .75x real time.

FYI my rated download speeds at speedtest.net are always about 2700.

Question -- How do I download all the episodes of a show without going back to each one to download it ?
Thanks
George

 

[Stuart Sweet]

That's the only way to do it. Took a little while to set up.

 

[Michael D'Angelo]

After seeing this thread I decided to test an HD program again (I did test one the other night and it was like it has always been for me.) and it looks like DIRECTV has made an improvement on the download speed.

I have Comcast Blast service and I average about 24MB download.

On SD it is about 2:1 download to watch.

On HD it was about 1:2 download to watch.

Now it looks like with HD if I let it download about 5 or 6 minutes first I can watch it with out catching up.

Hopefully it stays this way.

UPDATE: OK, well it looks like there were some improvements on speed but not as much as I thought. After about 50% download it slowed down a lot. So I would probably have to let it download about 15 or 20 minutes first.

 

[Michael D'Angelo]

I just tried another HD program (this time it was a program from the "The 101") and I was able to watch it start to finish live.

I have tried a HD progam on the "The 101" before and had to download about half of it before I could watch it without catching up.

 

[jacmyoung]

How I noticed it was usually when I downloaded a 1-hour HD VOD it'd take about 10 minutes for the bar to turn from red to yellow, but last time it was yellow from the start, I thought the reciever was acting weird but after looking further is was true, and when watching the actual HD show it was nothing unusual, the normal good PQ and mix of motion and still videos.

There may be improvement in new compression technology used.

 

[DesertFlyer]

Remember that Comcast "Blast" Cox "Powerboost" or any other cable technology that gives you temporary high speeds is just that, temporary. After a little bit of time your speeds will slow down to your normal cap levels.

I noticed you say you average about 24Mbps on speed test. Well, those speed test don't run long enough to see what your actual speeds are for larger downloads. With Cox I get about 30Mbps during the Powerboost stage, but then it settles down to about 15Mbps. So just be aware that could be causing the beginning of the program to download faster than the rest.

 

[Michael D'Angelo]

Remember that Comcast "Blast" Cox "Powerboost" or any other cable technology that gives you temporary high speeds is just that, temporary. After a little bit of time your speeds will slow down to your normal cap levels.

I noticed you say you average about 24Mbps on speed test. Well, those speed test don't run long enough to see what your actual speeds are for larger downloads. With Cox I get about 30Mbps during the Powerboost stage, but then it settles down to about 15Mbps. So just be aware that could be causing the beginning of the program to download faster than the rest.

No, I am not talking about Comcast boost. I am talking about Comcast Blast and I know the speedtest.net and others don't give you the correct results because of the boost. With the boost I can hit over 30MB down.

I have downloaded a few large files. One the other night was 181MB and I averaged about 24MB down.

 

[DesertFlyer]

Sorry, I don't have Comcast so it's a bit hard to keep up with their terminology. So I did a little more research and it looks like the fastest "Blast" speeds out there are 16Mbps download with 2Mbps upload. Notice that is Mb not MB. The two are very different. 24MB would be 192Mbps. That's faster than a normal LAN 100Mbps connection.

It doesn't really matter though because it seems like Highwinds/DirecTV are capping the servers still much slower than our connections. I still seem to get capped at an estimated 5-8Mbps.

 

[Michael D'Angelo]

Sorry, I don't have Comcast so it's a bit hard to keep up with their terminology. So I did a little more research and it looks like the fastest "Blast" speeds out there are 16Mbps download with 2Mbps upload. Notice that is Mb not MB. The two are very different. 24MB would be 192Mbps. That's faster than a normal LAN 100Mbps connection.

It doesn't really matter though because it seems like Highwinds/DirecTV are capping the servers still much slower than our connections. I still seem to get capped at an estimated 5-8Mbps.

You are correct with the Mb vs MB, my fault on that.

Yes the service is suppose to be 16 down and 2 up but my service has always be fast for some reason, even before I upgraded to the Blast service. I am getting about 24 down and 7 up.

I think it may have to do with I have RG11 (for whatever reason that was installed) from the pole to my house. Than I have a short RG6 line coming inside to my modem. There is no splitters or anything to hurt the signal so that may be why it is so fast.

 

[DesertFlyer]

I was just reading that some people get "perma-boost" which is when the powerboost stage never goes away. You're lucky!!

 

[jacmyoung]

I use ATT Uverse with max 10 mbps ul speed, I dont think they use any "boost", the HD VOD download speed has been consistant. You can tell by simply click "list" then select the VOD show in download, the info page will show the start download time, the curent time and the amount of time into the show that is being downloaded. The stats change in real time, I never noticed fast speed at the start and getting slower at the end.

 

[jacmyoung]

Never mind, just checked another download, the speed went back to normal. Yesterday's faster download could be an anomaly.

 

[Steve Mehs]

You are correct with the Mb vs MB, my fault on that.

Yes the service is suppose to be 16 down and 2 up but my service has always be fast for some reason, even before I upgraded to the Blast service. I am getting about 24 down and 7 up.

I think it may have to do with I have RG11 (for whatever reason that was installed) from the pole to my house. Than I have a short RG6 line coming inside to my modem. There is no splitters or anything to hurt the signal so that may be why it is so fast.

You're just getting PowerBoost (or more likely PermaBoost) on top of Blast. Blast is just the service level, 16/2, add PowerBoost on top of that and that speed makes sense. The use of RG11 and lack of splitters has nothing to do with it.