subject: Can Your Broadband Handle The New Dvd Rental? [print this page] Online streaming has been the buzz phrase surrounding film watching in the last few years.
Lovefilm already has a service and Virgin Media has entered the fray too, offering a streaming DVD rental service.Internet service providers such as BT and MSN UK are also offering a similar service and Google-owned YouTube is trialling a video rental service in the US.
Streaming is now providing recent releases such as District 9, Fantastic Mr Fox and Twilight New Moon as well as older films and television shows.
When customers go to rent a film there's a 30 day time limit and 48 hours to watch the film once the user has hit the play button.
In the case of Lovefilm most films are only available to those with DVD rental unlimited deals and a smaller number are open for everyone to buy.
This is all very well and good - and the instant nature of the transaction certainly puts renting DVDs from a shop or from an online DVD rental site into perspective - but is your broadband suitable for these kind of downloads?
There are three things to look out for with your broadband connection when you consider renting films through a streaming site.
First, your broadband speeds will affect the streaming service.
In the UK, Virgin Media offer broadband speeds of up to 50Mb and other providers offer up to 24Mb speeds. Other broadband providers tend to offer speeds of around 8Mb.
However, these are all 'up to' speeds which are liable to be much lower in actual fact as a result of a number of factors. The average UK home has an average download speed of about 3Mb.
At 3Mb you might have problems with watching streamed movies without breaks, especially if they're in high definition.
For this reason, you might be advised to download the film in full before pressing play to give your broadband connection a chance to catch up.
Second, you'll have to be careful with your broadband download allowance.
Watching or streaming films online is one of the ways that you can use up a download allowance very quickly and it can lead to extra charges.
You could try going for unlimited broadband deals but this is not a foolproof idea, see below.
Third, and most technically, you should take into account your broadband provider's fair use or traffic shaping policy.
A fair use policy means providers can throttle a broadband connection when they judge that you have downloaded too much.
Traffic shaping is much harder work out as many providers don't publish their policies but it means that streaming movies may be slower than other activities as providers try to meter out the connection fairly.
This is the case with broadband providers including sky or virgin.
