Download speed question

[g-boac]

About how long should it take for me to download a movie from iTunes? I've been downloading a 1.32GB movie (21), and it's taking me over an hour, with 24 minutes remaining to download 320MB. Is this about right? I have a MacBook, wirelessly connected to a TimeCapsule, connected to Comcast standard cable modem service. 1.5 hours doesn't seem reasonable to download a movie, so trying to figure out if I have a problem somewhere -- or if it really does take that long.

thanks!
Mark

 

[richard.mac]

click (or double click?) on the download bar. what speed does it say?

 

[Dudeman486]

test your download speed

go to speedtest.net or some other equivalent, and test what speed your computer is actually downloading at.

some people consider 10mbps to be normal, and can therefore download a movie infinitely faster than other users. i personally am lucky if i clock 2mbps.

so it may not be a problem with your computer/time capsule, rather, how fast your internet service provider is.

 

[g-boac]

click (or double click?) on the download bar. what speed does it say?

I get about 4.1 Mb/s -- ±about 1 Mb/s when downloading a podcast (movie was already downloaded).

At that speed, I should have the movie in about 5 min? (1.32Gb * 1024 Mb/Gb = 1,351Mb / 4.1 Mb/s = 329s = 5 min, 30 s. Is this right, or am I missing a zero somewhere?

thanks!
Mark

 

[richard.mac]

iTunes' download speed, speeds shown on SpeedTest.net and speeds advertised by ISPs are in bits per second and usually written with a lower case "b" i.e. 4.1 Mb/s while the size of a file is measured in bytes and usually written with an upper case "B" i.e. 1.32 GB.

this is very confusing as all the other download speeds in OS X are written in bytes per second KB/s.

there are 8 bytes in a bit so in your calculation you must covert your download speed to B/s so

4.1 Mb/s = 4198.4 Kb/s / 8 = 524.8 KB/s
1.32 GB = 1384120.3 KB
1384120.3 KB/524.8 KB/s = 2637.4 s = 44 mins*

* this is theoretical and in the real world your download speed probably isnt exactly 4.1 Mb/s the whole time, so that probably equates to the actual time taken. but definitely a more realistic time than 5 mins.