# How much bandwidth for 1080p YouTube stream?



## Gregsm (Sep 12, 2010)

I tried Google but most answers on top not clear and get into theoretical calculations of quality and length, or off topic, like PC hardware.

Anyway how much minimum bandwidth do I need to play 1080p YouTube video smoothly without waiting for preload? Currently I have 2.5mb, and its barely able to stream 720p. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it pauses.


----------



## puma99dk| (Sep 12, 2010)

doesn't they say it takes around 4mb/s to watch an "OKAY" streaming of 1080p, or am i totally off sync?


----------



## AltecV1 (Sep 12, 2010)

5-6 Mbit/s for viewing without any buffering (well thats my experience with youtube anyhow)


----------



## Gregsm (Sep 12, 2010)

puma99dk| said:


> doesn't they say it takes around 4mb/s to watch an "OKAY" streaming of 1080p, or am i totally off sync?



Dunno, didn't notice where. But anyway thanks both.


----------



## pantherx12 (Sep 12, 2010)

I've a 10Mb connection and can't stream 1080, though I suspect that's a problem with my ISP/youtube as every now and then I can : /


----------



## Lionheart (Sep 12, 2010)

I have a 30Mb/s connection and I have to wait for 480p but only about 10sec then it loads, 720p aint much worse but 1080p takes awhile, so fuk you telstra


----------



## AltecV1 (Sep 12, 2010)

CHAOS_KILLA said:


> I have a 30Mb/s connection and I have to wait for 480p but only about 10sec then it loads, 720p aint much worse but 1080p takes awhile, so fuk you telstra



man thats fucked up


----------



## Peter1986C (Sep 12, 2010)

What you could do is right-clicking on the video, selecting "settings" and then go to the icon with the folder picture. Move the slide to the right, so that you at least take the maximum bandwidth you can take. It may decrease the amount of buffering a bit (even though the buffering won't completely dissapear with the connection you have, I think). Watching at 720p may help too, and I think you won't see that much difference between 720p and 1080i on youtube (at least I don't, on my 1280x1024 monitor).


----------



## Bo$$ (Sep 12, 2010)

pantherx12 said:


> I've a 10Mb connection and can't stream 1080, though I suspect that's a problem with my ISP/youtube as every now and then I can : /



i have a 20MB. But it all depends on your ISP's youtube connection. here sky people get a 4MB connection direct to youtube regardless of our speed. That streams it 3-4 times faster than i can watch it, im half way through before it finishes loading


----------



## Dent1 (Sep 12, 2010)

Gregsm said:


> I tried Google but most answers on top not clear and get into theoretical calculations of quality and length, or off topic, like PC hardware.
> 
> Anyway how much minimum bandwidth do I need to play 1080p YouTube video smoothly without waiting for preload? Currently I have 2.5mb, and its barely able to stream 720p. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it pauses.



If you are paying for 2.5 meg from your ISP, that means that your maximum download is approximately 312Kb/sec. That is really poor, not enough to play 720p or 1080p.

I'm on a 20 meg fibre connection, so my maximum download is about 2.5Mb/sec, on a average day I can stream 1080p without buffering.

Bear in mind, HD on youtube is compressed so its actually easier to stream than it should be. Youtube has a new "Raw" option which is the uncompressed HD file.


----------



## DRDNA (Sep 12, 2010)

Depends where you are located... No matter what the connection speed is. If there are some bad hops then you get buffering!


----------



## Techtu (Sep 12, 2010)

Chevalr1c said:


> What you could do is right-clicking on the video, selecting "settings" and then go to the icon with the folder picture. Move the slide to the right, so that you at least take the maximum bandwidth you can take. It may decrease the amount of buffering a bit (even though the buffering won't completely dissapear with the connection you have, I think). Watching at 720p may help too, and* I think you won't see that much difference between 720p and 1080i on youtube (at least I don't, on my 1280x1024 monitor).*



I fail to see how you think you are watching HD on a monitor of that resolution 

Although it may play the video's just fine on that resolution it isn't displaying the video's in HD format:


----------



## Peter1986C (Sep 13, 2010)

Tech2 said:


> I fail to see how you think you are watching HD on a monitor of that resolution
> 
> Although it may play the video's just fine on that resolution it isn't displaying the video's in HD format:


I know I will not see it displayed in HD. Hence my remark that I don't see a difference 
So I know I don't see it in HD. I thought you would notice the irony in that post of mine


----------



## Techtu (Sep 13, 2010)

No I didn't sorry :/ It's a little hard to understand how some thing's are men't to be put across when your reading just a paragraph at a time, not only that I'm not exactly the brightest star in the sky


----------



## Bo$$ (Sep 13, 2010)

Tech2 said:


> No I didn't sorry :/ It's a little hard to understand how some thing's are men't to be put across when your reading just a paragraph at a time, not only that I'm not exactly the brightest star in the sky



no worries, it's all about the isp's connection


----------



## scaminatrix (Sep 13, 2010)

I don't even bother waiting for it to stream - just save the video to your hdd. 
Orbit Downloader is a good one - I haven't watched a video on youtube without using Orbit in years!
Try it - you might never go back...


----------



## Techtu (Sep 13, 2010)

scaminatrix said:


> I don't even bother waiting for it to stream - just save the video to your hdd.
> Orbit Downloader is a good one - I haven't watched a video on youtube without using Orbit in years!
> Try it - you might never go back...



Good idea in it's own way, however I think a lot of people would get annoyed having to download and delete a lot of the time, depending on the person and the space they have on any given HDD.


----------



## scaminatrix (Sep 13, 2010)

Tech2 said:


> Good idea in it's own way, however I think a lot of people would get annoyed having to download and delete a lot of the time, depending on the person and the space they have on any given HDD.



Good point. I'm a hoarder so I never delete stuff, but then I only watch interesting stuff!
I'm on a dongle so when I have to use x amount of download limit to watch a video, I'm saving it! Getting my money's worth!!

Your answer would most probably be:
Bitrate of a 1080p HD video is usually around 10Mbps so I'd guess a 10Mbps connection?


----------



## joe7dust (Oct 5, 2010)

Tech2 said:


> I fail to see how you think you are watching HD on a monitor of that resolution
> 
> Although it may play the video's just fine on that resolution it isn't displaying the video's in HD format:
> 
> ...








I'd love to know how you're getting 1080i on CBS. I always get the chunkiest looking crap quality vids there. Not to mention it takes like 5 minutes just to find a 2 minute CLIP of big Bang Theory. Am I looking in the wrong place???


----------



## Techtu (Oct 5, 2010)

joe7dust said:


> http://img.techpowerup.org/100912/Capture070.jpg
> 
> I'd love to know how you're getting 1080i on CBS. I always get the chunkiest looking crap quality vids there. Not to mention it takes like 5 minutes just to find a 2 minute CLIP of big Bang Theory. Am I looking in the wrong place???



Errm I don't watch anything on CBS... never have either, infact I've just had to google it as I had no idea what you was on about  

Anyway's I'm currently playing something on CBS and I don't seem to have any issue's whilst searching for some random programs  and I can't find anything to do with HD on their website...


----------



## kid41212003 (Oct 5, 2010)

I'm watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ&feature=featured

in 1080p, and i don't have to wait, it played instantly.

I have U-Verse 12Mbps connection.


----------



## Techtu (Oct 5, 2010)

kid41212003 said:


> I'm watching this:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ&feature=featured
> 
> ...



... I clicked the link... instant play on a 10mb connection  

...infact it's buffering nicely aswel.


----------



## Bo$$ (Oct 5, 2010)

same, but on a 20mb, it loaded MUCH faster than the play rate


----------



## joe7dust (Oct 8, 2010)

Playing perfect on 7Mb, but that wasn't my question.

How are you finding full episodes on CBS? All I ever see is clips.
And most important how do you get 1080i? It seems to throttle based on internet speed and I get like 480 to 720 jitters back and forth.


----------



## DRDNA (Oct 8, 2010)

here






http://www.cbs.com/


----------



## AsRock (Oct 8, 2010)

I have  a 20/4 and default it don't work well here either unless you  right click the video settings and change the local storage to unlimited.


----------



## Peter1986C (Oct 10, 2010)

Of course, the same goes for my fiber glass connection at my student room (which is even faster according to speedtest.net). Simply put, let's regard the video as a sausage for your pc. If you limit the size of the chunks of the sausage, your pc won't eat the sausage that fast. If you set it to unlimited, the size of the chunks will be brought to the mouth as fast as the size of the mouth (the power of the pc), the size of the fork (the size of the workload per pc that the servers can handle) and how fast the fork will bring the chunks of sausage from the plate to the mouth (the connection speed).

Put even simpler: if you limit the streaming bandwidth to for example 1 MB/s, than the video will stutter if it demands more than that.

Conclusion: no matter how fast your connection is, always do as described in the previous post (and by me a few posts back) and put the streaming bandwidth on unlimited to get the max out of your connection. Or click pause and wait until the download is completed (you will see the bar underneath the video being filled with a colour different than the one showing the view progress).


----------



## newtekie1 (Oct 10, 2010)

Gregsm said:


> I tried Google but most answers on top not clear and get into theoretical calculations of quality and length, or off topic, like PC hardware.
> 
> Anyway how much minimum bandwidth do I need to play 1080p YouTube video smoothly without waiting for preload? Currently I have 2.5mb, and its barely able to stream 720p. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it pauses.



Basically you need a consistant 10Mb/s connection at least, some content requires slightly more.

You also have to consider where the servers are located, and where you are located.  If you are loading a video stored on a server half way round the world, then chances are somewhere along the line it will hit a slow connection.  You can have a 100Mb/s connection, but if the data is being routed through a 2Mb/s connection along the way, then you are only going to get 2Mb/s.

I believe Youtube's servers are located in the Western US somewhere, so the farther you are away, the more likely you are to get a slow connection and not be able to stream HD content.  If you are overseas, then that is even worse.



Tech2 said:


> I fail to see how you think you are watching HD on a monitor of that resolution
> 
> Although it may play the video's just fine on that resolution it isn't displaying the video's in HD format:
> 
> ...



Anything over 720p is considered HD.  So a 1280x1024 screen is capable of displaying HD.


----------



## Lionheart (Oct 10, 2010)

Youtube suks ballx for me, it even sumtimes takes awhile for 360p to load up, thats from a 30Mbit net connection


----------



## Peter1986C (Oct 10, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Anything over 720p is considered HD.  So a 1280x1024 screen is capable of displaying HD.



I guess that Tech2 just meant 1080i/1080p.



CHAOS_KILLA said:


> Youtube suks ballx for me, it even sumtimes takes awhile for 360p to load up, thats from a 30Mbit net connection



Did you do the slider trick as described earlier? You simply have to do that as the folks from Adobe for got to make proper default settings for their Flash player. If you tried and it doesn't help, try Dailymotion.com.


----------

