topic Re: Crazy amounts of data being used casting downloaded netflix and youtube content from my mobile in Streaming

Crazy amounts of data being used casting downloaded netflix and youtube content from my mobile

mcfie — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:02:05 GMT

I have a 15GB / month broadband plan (unlimited data doesn't exist where I live, far too expensive) and bought a basic chromecast to display downloaded content (Netflix and Youtube) on my tv for my kid. I am going through my data at an alarming rate (5GB after a couple of hours watching what I thought was downloaded content). Is this expected behaviour or am I missing a setting somewhere? Even when watching live netflix, for a kids program that Netflix says is 48mb, it seemed to used 10 times this. It is too old a tv to be 4k. TIA for enlightening me whats going on and if its even possible to rectify!

Re: Crazy amounts of data being used casting downloaded netflix and youtube content from my mobile

Byteguy — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:14:53 GMT

How are you displaying the downloaded content?

If you are using the casting icon, you're actually using twice the data because that tells Netflix or YouTube to stream the content from their servers to your Chromecast. It does NOT use the copy that you downloaded on your device.

Re: Crazy amounts of data being used casting downloaded netflix and youtube content from my mobile

mcfie — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 22:18:39 GMT

oh boy! I navigate to the download and hit the casting icon in the app on my phone. I feel a "Doh!" moment coming on! So how do I display the downloaded content, do I screenshare using the phone cast / mirror? I have tried that but then it means I cant use my phone at the same time as kid is watching tv.

Re: Crazy amounts of data being used casting downloaded netflix and youtube content from my mobile

Byteguy — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:09:13 GMT

You figured out the answer, the only way to avoid that is to mirror your screen. The quality won't be as good and you won't be able to use your phone for anything else.

Sorry, Chromecast was really designed to stream over the internet. That way, you get the best quality available and you can do other things with your phone or tablet.

Re: Crazy amounts of data being used casting downloaded netflix and youtube content from my mobile

Jeran — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 18:12:26 GMT

Hey there!

It looks like mcfie was able to figure out the answer with some help from Byteguy, so I'm locking up the thread. As always, feel free to make a new thread if you have any more questions or concerns.

Thank you for your help, Byteguy!

Best regards,

Jeran