Optimized Streaming for Work, School, and Play

Suddenly, in the spring of 2020, our entire lives went online.  Work, school, and entertainment all had to be done from home, mostly in the form of streaming media.  We’ve all made adjustments to this, but you may have found that your internet connection isn’t up to the workload.  Here are a few tips to get the best streaming experience for your whole household.

Speed matters for video quality, so check your connection’s available bandwidth.  Zoom’s group video calling requires 1 Mbps for “high quality video”, 1.5 Mbps for 720p HD, and 2.5-3.0 Mbps for sending and receiving 1080p HD video, plus another 60-80 kbps for your audio.  Steaming services like Netflix, YouTube, SlingTV, and Hulu call for bandwidth anywhere between 2.5-3.0 Mbps for SD video up to as high as 15 or even 25 Mbps for Ultra HD. 

Adjusting your playback settings can limit how much bandwidth a streaming service can use, so someone watching a movie in the next room can’t knock you off your video conference.  Netflix allows these settings to be set individually on each profile under a given account.  For SlingTV, playback settings have to be set on each device by going to Settings, and then Connection. 

And a couple more tips:

The more people using your connection, the less bandwidth each person has. If your Internet connection is 25 Mbps and 2 people are streaming on separate devices, both streams are getting about 12.5 Mbps and so on.  Keep this in mind if you’re having trouble in your Zoom meetings while your kids are in online classes or streaming their favorite shows.

Remember that HD is not always necessary.  Do your co-workers, classmates, boss, or teachers need to see your face in high definition?  Probably not.  And if you don’t have an HD tv, there’s no point to streaming the highest quality video.  Turning off HD will save you bandwidth and data and make your streaming experience smoother.

Suddenly, in the spring of 2020, our entire lives went online.  Work, school, and entertainment all had to be done from home, mostly in the form of streaming media.  We’ve all made adjustments to this, but you may have found that your internet connection isn’t up to the workload.  Here are a few tips to get the best streaming experience for your whole household.

Speed matters for video quality, so check your connection’s available bandwidth.  Zoom’s group video calling requires 1 Mbps for “high quality video”, 1.5 Mbps for 720p HD, and 2.5-3.0 Mbps for sending and receiving 1080p HD video, plus another 60-80 kbps for your audio.  Steaming services like Netflix, YouTube, SlingTV, and Hulu call for bandwidth anywhere between 2.5-3.0 Mbps for SD video up to as high as 15 or even 25 Mbps for Ultra HD. 

Adjusting your playback settings can limit how much bandwidth a streaming service can use, so someone watching a movie in the next room can’t knock you off your video conference.  Netflix allows these settings to be set individually on each profile under a given account.  For SlingTV, playback settings have to be set on each device by going to Settings, and then Connection. 

And a couple more tips:

The more people using your connection, the less bandwidth each person has. If your Internet connection is 25 Mbps and 2 people are streaming on separate devices, both streams are getting about 12.5 Mbps and so on.  Keep this in mind if you’re having trouble in your Zoom meetings while your kids are in online classes or streaming their favorite shows.

Remember that HD is not always necessary.  Do your co-workers, classmates, boss, or teachers need to see your face in high definition?  Probably not.  And if you don’t have an HD tv, there’s no point to streaming the highest quality video.  Turning off HD will save you bandwidth and data and make your streaming experience smoother.

For affordable, reliable, high speed Internet service in your neighborhood, contact us today!