Vamp9190
join:2002-02-11
Chantilly, VA
| data rate for internet music streaming
What is the average data rate (per hour) that sites like Pandora, Slacker, RadioParadise, etc. stream?
I am guessing, about 50MB per hour? Like if they get a 3min. song down to 2.5MB (or less?) each & 20 songs per hour. Obviously longer songs have the same ratio of filesize to length.
and if you stream on a cellphone using 3G (or WiFi) does the amount change vs. on a PC? I do not see how it would since it is the same data, but just curious. |
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SSX4life
Premium
join:2004-02-13
 ·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | I stream music via VPN / Hamachi for 8 hrs a day during work. Here is the average usage in MB for last month.
Average about 100MB or so. YMMV |
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Vamp9190
join:2002-02-11
Chantilly, VA | So the green bar is the usage for the whole 8 hr.day? So 100MB/day is 12.5MB per hour, gotcha.
Now why is it double or triple on some days if you always run it about 8 hours? Is it using different/higher bit-rate sometimes? |
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SSX4life
Premium
join:2004-02-13 | That's all activity on my WAN, so it could be FTP / Email / Webserver / etc.
On average though.... that is what I have for streaming.
your results my vary =) |
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Vamp9190
join:2002-02-11
Chantilly, VA
| kinda confusing, you are not really being clear, but nm
I did a bit of research and I think this is correct: (& it depends obviously on the sample rate)
128Kbps = 16KB a second.
16KB/sec * 60 sec * 60 min = 57,600KB an hour (56.25MB/hour)
56.25MB * 8hr = 450MB
56.25MB * 24hr = 1350MB/day (1.35GB)
So 128Kbps streaming audio really is 128000 bits per second. That is 16000 bytes per second, or approximately 15.625 KB (in the binary meaning of the word) per second.
and a lower sample rate:
56Kbps = 8KB a second.
8KB/sec * 60 sec * 60 min = 28,800KB an hour (28MB/hour)
28MB * 8hr = 224MB
28MB * 24hr = 672MB/day |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
 ·North State Commun..
|  Your numbers look good to me. I know XM Radio Online streams in 32Kbps and 128Kbps for premium. I'm not sure about Pandora and the other, but they are *probably* 128Kbps. I've heard Pandora and the quality sounds like 128Kbps.
As for streaming on a 3G connection, the quality can vary greatly depending on the quality and latency of the 3G connection. I stream XM on my iPhone and I can hear a definite quality difference as the stream bitrate is reduced when I have slow connectivity or connectivity trouble. |
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btB
@sbcglobal.net
| reply to Vamp9190
Pandora does not stream mp3's. They stream flash flv files. Here are 3 samples of the minutes and file size. I am too lazy to explore the other sites, but it would not surprise me if the rates were about the same. Even though I am usually not too particular about the quality of music, Pandora's stream sounds poor to my ears.
minutes - file size
4:30 - 2.09MB
3:41 - 1.71MB
4:03 - 1.88MB |
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Vamp9190
join:2002-02-11
Chantilly, VA
1 edit | reply to Matt
Thanks Matt and btB
Good info to know. Interesting about Pandora, yeah now that you mention it I see the Flash interface that shows the songs played/playing. I have to check to see how Flash converts music to flv. I have converted video into flash format before, but did not realize you can do that with music too, huh.
I noticed something else too. I was using Pandora here at work and tried a Speedtest. Then I used Slacker & tried a Speed test. The download speed was lower when running both (obviously) but the lowest with Pandora.
Nothing running:
This is with Slacker:
Now Pandora:
Interesting, yesterday the DL speed when using Pandora was a LOT lower, at about 25 Mb/s
 |
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btB
@sbcglobal.net
| reply to Vamp9190
Since I was bored, I decided to check out what Slacker streams. It looks like they send out 128k mp3 files. RadioParadise of course lets you select a bit rate.
When you are connected to the music sites, there is also extra data being sent which probably relates to their webpage display. So, maybe there is about 100-200k sent in between songs. |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC | reply to btB
Pandora has a high and low bitrate setting I believe? It defaults to low. (I know this is true for the iPhone, I don't use Pandora on my computer.) |
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DataDoc
My avatar looks like me, if I was 2D.
Premium
join:2000-05-14
Greenville, NC | reply to Vamp9190
I don't think you can convert directly from sample rate to BPS, as MP3s are compressed. Pandora's FLVs are probably compressed as well.
--
"You see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear" - The Rockman |
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btB
@sbcglobal.net | reply to Vamp9190
The sites just send you the whole music files. In my case, Pandora sent me 64k FLV files, while Slacker sent 128k mp3 files. So if a music file is 4MB, they send you 4MB + some webpage stuff as I mentioned already. |
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