How much internet data will be used if you stream?

[Danny37]

planning on setting up a win500 server on my computer and using my phone so I can remotely access my scanner. I was wondering how much internet data would I be using if I ran win500 with uncompressed audio 24/7 (it sounds terrible compressed)

Do you think its possible to cap your data running a stream with this setup? I ran a data program that gave me approx upload and download usage. Something around 9kb for upload and 1 kb for download. When the audio was compressed, it went down to 3kb upload and downloads stayed the same.

My ISP is Verizon fios if that helps. Thanks in advance.

 

[Danny37]

Any feed providers that can provide some insight? I'd really appreciate it

 

[a417]

From Broadcastify's 'Becoming a Feed Provider' page, they say to expect about 5 gigs monthly usage, if you are streaming it to only your device - and with your own settings & software there are a great many other things to take into consideration.

It's all going to depend on how much bandwidth you're going to consume over what time. If your ISP (I used to have FiOS and never got a warning when I streamed and shared) has a stringent cap, you might want to ask them what they consider appropriate use - and what will incur extra charges.

You say that you are going to set up an uncompressed feed, and listen to it on your phone 24/7, is that realistic use? You're going to constantly stream that data to your phone, even when you're home? Are you going to be the only user? What about when your phone is on your house's wifi?

 

[ProScan]

Any feed providers that can provide some insight? I'd really appreciate it

Too many variables to calculate it accurately. Google "measure bandwidth" or something to the effect. You will find utilities that will do the job.

 

[a417]

I also forgot to add that I use a relatively heavy duty firewall box, not just the ONT/router from my ISP - so I have more granular control over bandwidth than your run of the mill ONT/end point router will give.

 

[Danny37]

.

You say that you are going to set up an uncompressed feed, and listen to it on your phone 24/7, is that realistic use? You're going to constantly stream that data to your phone, even when you're home? Are you going to be the only user? What about when your phone is on your house's wifi?

You're right its not realistic to have it running 24/7. More likely it'll be running 10-12 hours a day and 5-6 days a week.

I don't think I could possibly listen to it all the time when I'm out of about so probably ill be listening 3-6 hours and then remaining will be idle.

 

[Danny37]

Too many variables to calculate it accurately. Google "measure bandwidth" or something to the effect. You will find utilities that will do the job.

Thanks ill look into it

 

[Danny37]

I'm still interested in hearing from other feed providers and their data usage.

 

[a417]

I'd be suprised if that duty cycle & audio only stream exceeds 2 gigs.

 

[Danny37]

I'd be suprised if that duty cycle & audio only stream exceeds 2 gigs.

I'm going to call Verizon when I get home from work but from researching online. I have the fios Gigabit Connection plan which "officially" has no data cap. Saw some reddit posts that verizon starts asking questions once you exceed 10TB on your billing cycle.

There's no way I'd actually use that much data, even if I ran it 24/7.

 

[a417]

Agreed, you're probably worrying about nothing.

 

[vagrant]

TLDR; 4.5 MB per hour (3.24 GB if streamed 24/7 for a month)

I ran a data program that gave me approx upload and download usage. Something around 9kb for upload and 1 kb for download.

You provided the numbers, or at least an approximate. Looking at data from feed providers using different programs may not be accurate for what you will use, so do not do that. Go with what you know.

There may have been overhead on those numbers you obtained for other data, but let's just assume 10 Kbps and play it safe. Also, lets convert bits into bytes now to keep things clear for many. There are eight bits (small b) in a byte (capital B), so 10 Kbps / 8 = 1.25 KBps
1.25 KBps x 60 seconds = 75 KB per minute
75 KB per minute x 60 minutes = 4500 KB per hour which is 4.5 MB per hour

More people are familiar with Megabytes (MB), so...Win500 uncompressed uses 4.5 MB per hour based on the data you provided. Thus, if you stream five hours a day (22.5 MB) and five days a week (112.5 MB) your monthly total will probably be about 450 MB.

I personally use compression with Win500 and always have five days a week for the last 10 years while at work. Thanks to your post, I'll try it without compression. Data was more costly, so I left it alone. I can easily handle that data for whatever service I have these days whether to my phone or whatever. I leave Win500, computer and scanner up and running 24/7, but there's zero data use for that until I request the stream. (Many of you understand this, but there are others that are not familiar with these kinds of things.)

 

[Danny37]

TLDR; 4.5 MB per hour (3.24 GB if streamed 24/7 for a month)

I personally use compression with Win500 and always have five days a week for the last 10 years while at work. Thanks to your post, I'll try it without compression. Data was more costly, so I left it alone. I can easily handle that data for whatever service I have these days whether to my phone or whatever. I leave Win500, computer and scanner up and running 24/7, but there's zero data use for that until I request the stream. (Many of you understand this, but there are others that are not familiar with these kinds of things.)

Wow, thank you so much for the calculations.

I think I'll probably just run it for 12 hours and have it shut down at night. If I read the last part correctly having the server running with no connection doesn't use any bandwidth. Its only when a connection is established that data is used.

 

[Danny37]

Also on the topic of streaming, I've noticed that when I used a ground loop isolator--the audio sounds worse. I've used two different brands and the same result. A straight cable sounds so much cleaner. I know its frowned upon but what risk am I running with a straight cable via the headphone jack on the scanner and a USB soundboard on the computer?

 

[prcguy]

You might overdrive the input to your sound card as its designed more for -10dBu levels and your headphone out might produce maybe 10dBu, so you would have to run your headphone levels fairly low to avoid distortion. One clue to this would be the input levels of your computer being almost all the way down.

Another problem is the headphone out is low impedance to cover a range of maybe 8 to 100 ohm headphones. The input to a computer sound card is probably 10k ohms. It would be good to put a load on the headphone output side like 50 ohms so the headphone amp has a reasonable load and is not operating near open circuit with a 10k ohm or higher impedance sound card attached. Adding a load to the headphone side will bring the level down slightly into the sound card and you could also lower it further with a 2 to 10k ohm resister in series to the sound card or use a 10k potentiometer so you can adjust it to perfection.

Also on the topic of streaming, I've noticed that when I used a ground loop isolator--the audio sounds worse. I've used two different brands and the same result. A straight cable sounds so much cleaner. I know its frowned upon but what risk am I running with a straight cable via the headphone jack on the scanner and a USB soundboard on the computer?

 

[vagrant]

Wow, thank you so much for the calculations.

No problem as it is stuff I learned 25+ years ago when starting up an ISP with a friend, and whatever the hell an ISP meant.

If I read the last part correctly having the server running with no connection doesn't use any bandwidth. Its only when a connection is established that data is used.

That is correct. I specifically noted that in case you and others did not know it already. The Win500 server is ready and waiting for a client request in order to start a stream.

Ahhh...there is one thing I should point out. When you open whatever port on your router that matches the one set for Win500 and point it to the computer running the Win500 server, you may notice over time in the Win500 entry window that connections from IP addresses that are not yours have connected to your server. They are usually brief, as in seconds, and probably did not stream much data. Basically, people...let's call them mostly bad people, have bots/scripts whatever you want to call it running and sweeping IP addresses and ports. Thus, as they're sweeping a particular block of IP's, they'll come across yours and it will hit your Win500 port. That IP may hit again and then another one soon after to confirm and possibly try to inject a package to take over your computer/server, etc. The thing is Win500 does not give them the response they want, so they move on. Don't worry about it unless it is relentless and non stop. (It won't be) Typically, it will be the IP from your phone or wherever you normally connect from.

Have fun.

P.S. There is/was a user here named Eric Cottrell. I think it was him, someone correct me if I am wrong. Anyways they made an Android app that you can use listen to your stream. If you have an Android device, you may find that app useful. I believe it is still free. They also created a server for the TRX1. The server has a charge, but worth it if you have a TR1X or whatever that model # is and want to serve it up like Win500. A search of the forum should provide answers.

 

[n5ims]

Be aware that to become a feed provider you must agree to the terms of service (
Becoming a Feed Provider). One of these terms is

A computer with a sound card dedicated to providing an audio feed that can remain online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, preferably on an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

While they do allow a feed to be less than the full 24/7, they reserve the right to cancel your feed and allow another provider that will do the full 24/7 feed. They will also remove your perks when your feed is not online. Now if it's a private feed and not associated with Broadcastify you should be able to set your own rules.

 

[Danny37]

No problem as it is stuff I learned 25+ years ago when starting up an ISP with a friend, and whatever the hell an ISP meant.

That is correct. I specifically noted that in case you and others did not know it already. The Win500 server is ready and waiting for a client request in order to start a stream.

Ahhh...there is one thing I should point out. When you open whatever port on your router that matches the one set for Win500 and point it to the computer running the Win500 server, you may notice over time in the Win500 entry window that connections from IP addresses that are not yours have connected to your server. They are usually brief, as in seconds, and probably did not stream much data. Basically, people...let's call them mostly bad people, have bots/scripts whatever you want to call it running and sweeping IP addresses and ports. Thus, as they're sweeping a particular block of IP's, they'll come across yours and it will hit your Win500 port. That IP may hit again and then another one soon after to confirm and possibly try to inject a package to take over your computer/server, etc. The thing is Win500 does not give them the response they want, so they move on. Don't worry about it unless it is relentless and non stop. (It won't be) Typically, it will be the IP from your phone or wherever you normally connect from.

Have fun.

P.S. There is/was a user here named Eric Cottrell. I think it was him, someone correct me if I am wrong. Anyways they made an Android app that you can use listen to your stream. If you have an Android device, you may find that app useful. I believe it is still free. They also created a server for the TRX1. The server has a charge, but worth it if you have a TR1X or whatever that model # is and want to serve it up like Win500. A search of the forum should provide answers.

Thanks man, you've been very helpful! I do have another port running so I can see my computer Temps and loads. Hopefully I'm safe on that end.

So I noticed when I run the stream with uncompressed audio, the background noise is horrendous. I did everything I could to remove it, adding a groundloop, setting the scanner volume to 40% and comp volume to 20%

In the end, compressed audio mutes the background noise but it also lowers the audio voice quality. Since win500 starts the audio automatically compressed and there's no way to disable it, I've grown to accept it. I still do notice a hiss when the carrier opens.

I'm brain-storming and wondering if bluetooth audio would fix this. If I got a bluetooth transmitter for the scanner and connected it to my pc.

 

[vagrant]

CPU/Load & Heat
I never noticed an issue with heat and load, but I never tasked the computer handling it for much other than ADS-B stuff. The current computer is Win10 w/Core2 Duo, 3 GHz CPU and 4 GB of RAM. A really basic machine to run that stuff, but that is mostly all it does. I may be different than others in that I have more computing devices handling a few tasks each. If one went down the other could pick up the slack until repaired/replaced.

* If you minimize Win500 to the taskbar, it will reduce the load quite a bit. Open up Task Manager and look at the difference when on screen and when minimized.

Noise
Okay, I tested it uncompressed using my phone and noticed the noise as well. That background hiss is loud compared to what I am used to with compressed. Additionally, my ear did not pick up enough of an audio improvement to run it uncompressed, so I may stay with compressed and enjoy. I almost always listen while at my desk with the audio coming out of the computer speakers. I have other ambient noise as well in my office, so I may not have an issue with it uncompressed. It was crazy loud using my phone though. I will need to try it at work.

As to Bluetooth, experiment and have fun. I personally tested a Bluetooth transmitter with my scanner and also heard noise/rumbling while it was scanning. Still, all Bluetooth devices are not the same.

 

[Danny37]

CPU/Load & Heat
I never noticed an issue with heat and load, but I never tasked the computer handling it for much other than ADS-B stuff. The current computer is Win10 w/Core2 Duo, 3 GHz CPU and 4 GB of RAM. A really basic machine to run that stuff, but that is mostly all it does. I may be different than others in that I have more computing devices handling a few tasks each. If one went down the other could pick up the slack until repaired/replaced.

* If you minimize Win500 to the taskbar, it will reduce the load quite a bit. Open up Task Manager and look at the difference when on screen and when minimized.

Noise
Okay, I tested it uncompressed using my phone and noticed the noise as well. That background hiss is loud compared to what I am used to with compressed. Additionally, my ear did not pick up enough of an audio improvement to run it uncompressed, so I may stay with compressed and enjoy. I almost always listen while at my desk with the audio coming out of the computer speakers. I have other ambient noise as well in my office, so I may not have an issue with it uncompressed. It was crazy loud using my phone though. I will need to try it at work.

As to Bluetooth, experiment and have fun. I personally tested a Bluetooth transmitter with my scanner and also heard noise/rumbling while it was scanning. Still, all Bluetooth devices are not the same.

Yup, it doesn't strain my cpu/load at all. Temps are pretty much in the 40s C when running everything minimized. I just have it so I can know the temps. And yes I did noticed that in task manager, I have it so when win500 starts up minimized everytime the pc boots up.

The noise I guess isn't much of a problem, I'm just nitpicking since I'm coming off proscan which used the uniden 536 wifi audio which was clean.

I'm going to give it a go, for whatever reason my pc wouldn't find my bluetooth transmitter in the settings and i was too tired to fiddle with it. I think I may have another one somewhere.