Surpassing download limit; watching too much anime

[Nello]

Newbie here.

Despite the fact that we have a 35GB download limit from our provider, I tend to surpass it at the end of the month.

Is there an alternative to reduce my downloading of anime ? Could I reduce it if I watch anime online like on YouTube ? I'm not an expert in this field.

[Ledgem]

YouTube video quality is pretty terrible overall and is made for streaming, so you'd be using less bandwidth to watch something on YouTube than to download a 100-300 MB episode. My girlfriend's sister watches anime that way, and I just can't imagine doing it - not only is the quality terrible, but because YouTube is limited to ~10 minute clips you'll have to stop in the middle and click on a new clip. To me, that totally ruins the experience of getting sucked into the story (and as I mentioned, the video quality isn't great, you won't be able to go into full-screen mode and enjoy it, and the sound quality won't be as good as it could have been). I admit bias - I used to be a fansubber, and I (and my peers) put a ton of work into making our stuff look good. YouTube's quality makes our effort go completely to waste.

So the short answer to your question is that, unless you watch episodes over multiple times, YouTube would be a quick cure. But let's see if we can't think of something better. The 35 GB limit is purely download, and not down+up, right? And you're downloading through BitTorrent?

My recommendation is that you download anime through IRC. Even if your limit is only on the download side, it's very rare to not have "wasted" bandwidth on a download due to the way that BitTorrent works. Depending on the file and the torrent's peers, the amount wasted could be as little as 1 MB; it could be as much as a few hundred. If you're really downloading a lot, it adds up over time. If you're not familiar with it, IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat - you basically join a server, and can then join chat "channels" on that server. This is where fansubbers are based, and nearly all of them have file servers that you can download from directly. Since it's a direct download, you're basically only using up the bandwidth required to get the file, and nothing more.

That alone won't do it, of course. You're either going to have to limit yourself, or you're going to have to go for the lower-quality encodes (those with lower filesizes). I know you're not spending all of your 35 GB on anime, but to surpass it and attribute it to anime - are you watching every single fansub in existence?

If you have any friends who are into anime, it might be worth it to coordinate with them and swap files offline. Or if you have no friends who are into it, maybe try to see if there's a local anime club? Either of those are a bit of a pain, but if you're desperate...

A final suggestion: get a bandwidth monitoring tool. Are you using Windows? My favorite Windows tool for this is a program called DUMeter. It tracks your overall download and upload bandwidth usage for the day, week, and month. You can have it alert you if you've gone over a certain amount of data transferred for one of those time periods. I used it when I was on my university's connection, so that I could transfer heavy amounts without exceeding their bandwidth policy. With this, you'll be able to push your limits without exceeding them. If you have housemates or other people who heavily use the internet it can be trickier to calculate how much of the connection has been used, but I recommend it either way.

[Syaoran]

Since you're from Belgium, switch to Dommel as provider

- 100GB download and traffic at night is only counted @60%
- No upload limit.
- Access to Giganews with 90 days retention for usenet

[icon818]

http://www.stage6.com/ has some anime and its way better quality then youtube

[Nello]

I'm not downloading through BitTorrent because I can't make a connection with it. There is a safety on our connection. For example if someone wants to use his/her webcam with me, it won't work. If I want to use mIRC, it won't work..

But what if I watch this clip on Veoh.com:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v2374683D...512108&rank=16

It says size 200MB. What if I just watch the clip but I don't download it, would I still waste 200MB or less ? And what if I close the window and rewatch it again ? It seems like the clip is buffering again but am I wasting any bytes on that ?

Thanks for the tool. I was looking for something like that. And I understand from a fansubber's point of view that flashplayer videosites like Youtube make the quality of your work worse. Eventually I will do something about my download limit but for the meantime it may be the only solution.

I use stage6 a lot but I'm afraid I'm even spending more bytes with that site than on Veoh and Youtube. And Dommel may be a nice internet provider alternative.

Thanks for the help guys.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Nello

I'm not downloading through BitTorrent because I can't make a connection with it. There is a safety on our connection. For example if someone wants to use his/her webcam with me, it won't work. If I want to use mIRC, it won't work..

Sounds like your provider is incredibly restrictive. I'd switch providers if possible (easier said than done, I know). How have you been downloading anime?

But what if I watch this clip on Veoh.com:

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v2374683D...512108&rank=16

It says size 200MB. What if I just watch the clip but I don't download it, would I still waste 200MB or less ? And what if I close the window and rewatch it again ? It seems like the clip is buffering again but am I wasting any bytes on that ?

I can't imagine that they're going to stream a 200 MB file to you. It's more likely that the 200 MB file is what's downloaded, and that the file that you watch over streaming won't be more than 60 MB (that's a very rough guess - you could use DUMeter to find out approximately how much it really is, though). If you close it and then watch it again, you'll most likely be downloading all over again. If it's telling you that it's buffering, then it's definitely downloading.

[SeijiSensei]

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but....

35 GB of download capacity = about 200 anime episodes using the fairly normal 175 MB/episode figure common to many fansubs. That's 7-8 episodes per day. If that's not enough anime to fulfill your cravings, then perhaps you need to find a few other activities to occupy your time. I hear reading and taking walks outside can be very satisfying.

[hobbes_fan]

If you're rewatching a lot of stuff you're better of downloading it, you can rip stuff from most streaming sites by using Video Download Helper extension for firefox. Which will save it to your PC and means you only use bandwidth once instead of mltiple times

[Nenkitsune]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but....

35 GB of download capacity = about 200 anime episodes using the fairly normal 175 MB/episode figure common to many fansubs. That's 7-8 episodes per day. If that's not enough anime to fulfill your cravings, then perhaps you need to find a few other activities to occupy your time. I hear reading and taking walks outside can be very satisfying.

you do have a point, but bittorent trashes a lot of peices while you download. in 32 days azureus has calculated 166gb downloaded, but when i actually go and see how much i've downloaded in 32 days, it rounds off to about 159gb. that's 7gb that azureus threw away.

[Myname]

If your ISP doesn't complain, don't stop.

If you have a 35GB limit, 40 - 42GB should be fine. Depends on your ISP though.

[Sazelyt]

Originally Posted by Nello

Is there an alternative to reduce my downloading of anime ? Could I reduce it if I watch anime online like on YouTube ?

If you can access wireless internet free of charge, then use that option to reduce the amount of download you would require at your home. Otherwise, download the SD versions, for most series. Lower quality, but, in your case, it might be a necessity. Reserve the HD versions for only the series you enjoy the most.

Or if you have a friend or friends with the same interests, share your downloads with that person, or that people (you download some, that person download the remaining, etc.), exchange the animes you have downloaded through rewritable DVDs, etc.

[Nenkitsune]

I like using an external hard drive for sharing anime. I have a 40gb external drive. Plenty of room for at least 8 full series.

[hobbes_fan]

Originally Posted by Myname

If your ISP doesn't complain, don't stop.

If you have a 35GB limit, 40 - 42GB should be fine. Depends on your ISP though.

Err, the ISP throttles him after 35gbs. No complaining. It's automated. His connection is probably dropped to dialup speeds after that.

[Dark Shikari]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Sounds like your provider is incredibly restrictive. I'd switch providers if possible (easier said than done, I know). How have you been downloading anime?


I can't imagine that they're going to stream a 200 MB file to you. It's more likely that the 200 MB file is what's downloaded, and that the file that you watch over streaming won't be more than 60 MB (that's a very rough guess - you could use DUMeter to find out approximately how much it really is, though). If you close it and then watch it again, you'll most likely be downloading all over again. If it's telling you that it's buffering, then it's definitely downloading.

No, its most definitely actually 200 megabytes.

If you want to save bandwidth, find the best way possible to get extremely small H.264 rips.

[Syaoran]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Sounds like your provider is incredibly restrictive. I'd switch providers if possible (easier said than done, I know). How have you been downloading anime?

I don't know any provider in Belgium who restricts the internet connection in such a way. In the past I know Telenet restricted the ports 1..1024 because lots of their users had no clue that ports like 80, 139, 21 etc were open to the world.

This sounds more like a firewall @ user-side that's doing its job a little to well.