Boxe Box with Mobile Broadband

[lartomar2002]

I go to the mountains of north Georgia 3-4 times a year. I have a choice of either Verizon or AT&T broadband. with Verizon i get a 5GB cap per month with AT&T it is only 2.5GB so it is a no brainier i would use Verizon. can i use BB with wireless broadband? if so what consistent download speeds would i need? and if i use it to watch movies or tv shows for about 4 hous per day approx. how long would it take me to reach the 5GB cap? Thanks

[seand5018]

Woops first thought you were saying Mps speeds. Depending on the encoding 1/2 of video is about 300 megs, movies between 700 megs and 1.5 gigs depending on encoding, audio is surround or not. There is a lot of variability.

Might want to "stock up" on downloaded material rather than stream everything.

The speed should be OK for SD streams but the caps are the problem.

[lartomar2002]

seand5018, with Verizon after i reach my 5gb cap (unlimited) i will be throttled back to i believe to 254kbps. so after the 5gb cap which i think averages about 700kbps download speed it is 254 kbps. Verizon advertises it as unlimited but it is not.

[neveroffline]

You left out an important part of the equation, how long are you going to be gone for at a time, 2-3 days, 2-3 weeks?

I would think after 4hrs, that would equal 1.5 gig of SD content, or 700MB per movie. So each month under that you would be able to watch 4hrs a day for 3.5 days (last day would be 2hrs). Give or take a few hrs. I personally would take with you an external HDD with movies you can watch and use the wireless to catch some missed episodes maybe. That way at least you can get more before you hit the cap. You can hit the 5GB cap in a day for instance downloading 5 movies.

Hope that helps.

[lartomar2002]

i would be gone at least a month. after i am throttled back to 254kbps could i just let it buffer until the movie or tv episode has finished downloading to a external hdd?

[neveroffline]

i would be gone at least a month. after i am throttled back to 254kbps could i just let it buffer until the movie or tv episode has finished downloading to a external hdd?

You'd still have a 5GB cap. It really doesn't matter how you throttle, 5GB/month is not really a good cap for streaming video at all. If you plan on streaming a solid 4 days in a month for 4 hrs, my prediction is that you will surpass that 5GB cap.

Standard DVD's are 4.7GB just for reference.

[lartomar2002]

i have left out some info. with the unlimited plan you get the max. download speed untill you reach the 5gb benchmark then you can still download but it is at the 254kbps speed.

[darcilicious]

after i am throttled back to 254kbps could i just let it buffer until the movie or tv episode has finished downloading to a external hdd?

Unfortunately that's not how online streaming media works with the Boxee Box. It's not downloading the entire video but just (for example purposes only) the last few minutes and the next few minutes from the point you currently are in the movie or show. At no time is the entire video downloaded in a way that it can be viewed "later".

[lartomar2002]

so i can not use a ext. hdd with boxee box?

[neveroffline]

so i can not use a ext. hdd with boxee box?

Yes you may, and in your case I recommend it for those trips. Just download the movies etc you want to an external HDD, then head out for a month, and use your BB for that - save your bandwidth for missed episodes, etc.

If you get capped after 5GB to 254kbits, that would be enough for some very poor quality streaming. In other words like Darci said, you'd be waiting for the next minute, etc.

Do you have a landline perhaps? Then you could go Satellite and it would be 10x nicer.