G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Hey all! :) Since I got a smart TV, I've been finding it a little too easy to blow through my bandwidth allowance. Does anyone know of a way to compress the data that goes through my modem or router? And would that make a difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Sadly, no. 1. It would only work if you could find an "endpoint" past the ISP that would compress-decompress your data stream. 2. Most video/audio streams are already highly compressed, so compressing them further wouldn't gain you much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Andrew McGlashan Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 There is plenty of content that will not compress, content already compressed includes images and video, sound if in formats like mp3 too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 Ah. It was worth a shot. Thanks very much to both of you Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ & Andrew McGlashan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Derek J.D. Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Can you switch to a better provider? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Will Pherigo Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Verizon FIOS. That's a big pipe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Will Pherigo Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Sounds like a good topic for writing a blog on consumer "gotchas"! A lot if promises made that come with some important caveats! If you can get an antennae set up for local TV, that might help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 Derek J.D. Not many choices here; Wave Broadband is the best choice in this area (Sequim, WA)... Perhaps the only choice for broadband. Will Pherigo Verizon won't offer FIOS here. And this area is too remote for even the fanciest antennas. And as far as antenna watching goes, cord cutting has spoiled me too much - I like watching "what I want where I want how I want" too much. So the question remains: is Wave ripping me off? For $61 monthly my 30 Mbps down came with 300 gigs of bandwidth. I've been staying with standard def in my viewing, but when a couple of months ago I blew through 80% in half the month, I decided to pay an extra $10 for another 100 gigs. Or is the smart TV the culprit? I never got a bandwidth limit message until just after installing it, and I've been streaming Internet video on my cable connection for about 4 years. Thanks again for all the help everyone! :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Derek J.D. Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Elizabeth Whitmire could be the TV streaming the highest quality rather than medium, might be a setting instead of HD move to high. Podcasts that don't have visual benefit you could move to audio. Could use wireshark to see what your TV is doing network wise too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 Derek J.D. I'll recheck my TV's settings. And I've switched most of TWiT to audio for the past few weeks, though that's a sacrifice. ;) Before I had TWiT on the lowest video quality because I usually watch on a small screen anyway. Wireshark, hmm... Oh >.< it's PC only. Well does it do just what my router's analysis does? I just looked at the admin page on my router, and this is the status for the 5Ghz part of the router: http://goo.gl/IZe1Tk (The TV apparently won't work on the 2Ghz network, as the Netflix app kept having to relaunch.) And looking at the router's logs, I see this: "[DoS Attack: TCP/UDP Chargen] from source: 80.82.70.34, port 48659, Sunday, January 05,2014 02:38:33 [DoS Attack: ACK Scan] from source: 115.248.159.100, port 33927, Sunday, January 05,2014 01:50:07 [DoS Attack: ACK Scan] from source: 115.248.159.100, port 33926, Sunday, January 05,2014 01:50:06" A bunch of lines like that. Is that normal? If not, what do I do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Derek J.D. Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Scans happen quite a bit but I would keep an eye on it. Wireshark should be Mac, Win, Linux, Android.... Is anyone file sharing in the house, that chews up a ton of bandwidth. How many devices do you have online, make sure none have malware or are part a bot network. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 I must have been looking at the wrong Wireshark; I'm downloading the Mac version now. There's no file sharing, but the devices using the modem are my Mac (mostly for work), and 2 Android tablets. On one tablet I stream TWiT (usually just audio) and play games like Tapped Out and Clash of Clans, and the Nexus 7 is for reading as I'm watching TV (I can't do just one or the other, but this double duty Internet use has been my behavior for about 2 years with no issues until very recently) and the N7 is also my morning wake up device via an Internet radio station in TuneIn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Derek J.D. Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Best I can suggest is look for something chewing up bandwidth, maybe try a week with the TV on/off the network to compare usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 I'll definitely try that. Thanks so much! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Derek J.D. Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Not a problem and good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Will Pherigo Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 You may be able to provide that log to your ISP and let them deal with it. Have you gone to grc.com and done a Shield's Up test to see how invisible you are? Largely the internet shouldn't know you are there from a port probe. You might also want to see if using the ad blocker plugin for your browsers, and selectively using NoScript on sites that don't require JavaScript helps cut down unwanted traffic. You've received some great comments from others! I hope between them and the ISP you can identify the source of the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Elizabeth Whitmire Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 I'll try showing Wave the log and see what they say. I hadn't run Shields Up lately, so I tried it just now and for a green light ("did not respond to our UPnP probes"). And I do use Ad Blocker Plus on unfamiliar sites and on familiar sites that are heavy with ads. And I have ESET on my Mac and Lookout on the Android devices. Well that's interesting about No Script - I thought it wouldn't affect viewing pages where JavaScript isn't required. I'll definitely give that a try. Thanks again everyone!! :-D The TWiT Army is full of awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Will Pherigo Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 You're right, NoScript shouldn't affect pages where JavaScript isn't required, but JS pops up in so many places you wouldn't expect. Sounds like you are already doing all the right things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Will Pherigo Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Disclaimer: I should say, "as I understand it" NoScript shouldn't blah blah... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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