said by One More Too:said by John43 :So, here's some complete newbie's questions on that topic. My apologies if I should ask these somewhere else, but how big is a typical movie? How practical will it be to download one to my computer and then wifi it to my TV? Can I download while I watch, and/or does one download first and then watch? Is there a buffering issue, as I currently get with You Tube with my current setup?
I think that a typical standard definition movie should run around 1 gigabyte. A typical HD 1080i movie would run about 2 gigabytes, and a typical HD 1080p movie would run around 4 gigabytes.
How the download and buffering proceeds depends on the source.
If, for example, you were doing a download via DIRECTV on-demand service, it would actually be recorded to your DIRECTV DVR hard drive. If your download speeds aren't fast enough to watch it in real time, you can let it record completely and watch it later. With many other internet based video sources, nothing is actually being recorded to your computer's hard drive. You are pretty much limited to watching in real time, and many sources will detect your connection speed and vary the quality of the stream to match your download speed and enable adequate buffering.
I would think that the new monthly allowances would be welcome to those who want to watch, at least, a modest amount of video content. With the daily allowances that exist now, a single 2 hour movie would send you into FAP. With the monthly allowances, you might be able to budget available bandwidth and be able to get a couple of movies per month in and, perhaps, more if you sign up for a higher-tiered plan.
Thanks, that's a great answer. I had completely forgotten that the DirecTV DVR will be able to "see" the Hughes satellite without going through my computer.
