The amount of bandwidth required to stream a video or audio depends on the size of the media file, and the time it takes to download this file depends on the size of the file and the speed of the internet connect. Dynamic Signal does not limit our members’ download speeds—the apps take as much bandwidth as your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will allow. If your video or audio is slower to download than expected, it could be due to multiple factors, including:
- Lower overall download speeds provided by your particular Internet plan / corporation
- Time of day / peak hours of usage with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) / corporation
- Increased traffic on your network due to other connected office devices (digital signage, concurrent video meetings, etc)
- Corporate Network limiting. A lot of companies will de-prioritize a user who is consuming too much bandwidth within a given time download speeds are usually measured in thousands or millions of bits per second - Kbps or Mbps. It’s important to note that bits (lower case “b”) are not the same thing as bytes (upper case “B”).
As an example, a 50 MB (megabyte) file will take more than 5 seconds to stream on a 10 Mbps (megabits per second) connection. If you want to do the math, you can type these equations directly into Google. For example: Let’s say your speed test result is 10 Mbps (10 megabits per second) and you’re trying to watch/listen to a 50 MB (megabyte) file.
- First, run a speed test (https://fast.com/) to determine your download rate.
- Then, use Google to convert your megabits into megabytes. Search query: “10 Mbps to MB/s”
- Finally, divide your file size (50 MB) by the result of your query (1.25 megabytes per second).
The result of this equation (50 / 1.25 = 40) tells you how many seconds your download should take if the bandwidth is consistent. In other words, a 50MB video or audio file should take about 40 seconds on a 10 Mbps internet connection. Podcasts are usually far smaller in file size – around 25MB on average.