Youtube preloaded clips use a LOT of data??

[HarryC]

I've noticed that when preloading youtube clips to my phone via wireless the data used is suspiciously high, so I ran a test.

I preloaded a clip, to the preload feature on the phone. 56mb (usage meter on my laptop).

I then viewed the exact same clip on the laptop. 11mb.

That's about what I'd expect for the quality of the clip, from a few years of experience on youtube.

As I said before doing this comparison I'd noticed preloading clips seems to use a lot of data for the clip length/quality. But 5 times as much??

I've clarified that there's nothing else happening during the wireless transfer, checked and re-checked. Data usage starts when I select 'watch later' for the vid, and stops when the arrow turns green. I had trouble a couple of weeks ago but worked out to unselect the 'preload subscriptions' option (as it just starts downloading ALL the videos from them without asking, grrr).

I use mobile broadband so I have data limits.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[cianbroderick01]

Well, for me the data was used because it's a sim/data provider rather than WiFi, because of how my data-provider cannot compress the file, where as my WiFi provider simply compresses the file, and my browser simply un-compresses it.

It's basically why programs such as WinRar and 7-zip are so useful. Why would you want to download 6gb when it can be 1gb?

Also, if you are preloading videos on YouTube with data, don't. If your data is slow USE WIFI. If it is fast don't preload, just watch as you want.