Ridiculously fast uploads?
October 27, 2008 7:06 PM Subscribe
Can veoh.com upload speeds exceed 300mbps?
I regularly upload videos to veoh.com, usually at about a speed of 60-100kbps, not bad.
But today I went to upload one and my 900mb video was uploaded almost instantly, literally within (3?) seconds!!
I thought it must have been a mistake, but went on to veoh.com to edit the video metadata and such, gave it a few minutes to process, and it really was all uploaded: all 900mb, all 1 hour and 30 minutes of it!
This is unreal. Not that I'm complaining, but how is this possible?
I am on a campus network, and never before have I seen such ridiculous speeds, downloading or uploading.
Maybe I should just accept it as a really cool freak accident and move on? Haha...
I regularly upload videos to veoh.com, usually at about a speed of 60-100kbps, not bad.
But today I went to upload one and my 900mb video was uploaded almost instantly, literally within (3?) seconds!!
I thought it must have been a mistake, but went on to veoh.com to edit the video metadata and such, gave it a few minutes to process, and it really was all uploaded: all 900mb, all 1 hour and 30 minutes of it!
This is unreal. Not that I'm complaining, but how is this possible?
I am on a campus network, and never before have I seen such ridiculous speeds, downloading or uploading.
Maybe I should just accept it as a really cool freak accident and move on? Haha...
I don't use veoh, but it's not uncommon for big sites to be situated on multiple Gigabit (1,000 Mbps) links. Universities tend to have insane backbones, too, but they're usually heavily used.
However, if you mean 900 MB (megabytes) in 3 seconds, it would be 300MB/sec., or 2400 Mbps. (Since 1 byte = 8 bits.)
I'd say it's impossible that you exceeded this: network cards for computers tend to run 100 Mbps, and sometimes 1000 Mbps, though most networks still run at 100 Mbps. If you had a network card that could exceed 1000 Mbps, you'd have paid four figures for it and installed it by hand, in which case, you wouldn't be here asking this question.
Perhaps your video was very compressible?
posted by fogster at 7:41 PM on October 27, 2008
However, if you mean 900 MB (megabytes) in 3 seconds, it would be 300MB/sec., or 2400 Mbps. (Since 1 byte = 8 bits.)
I'd say it's impossible that you exceeded this: network cards for computers tend to run 100 Mbps, and sometimes 1000 Mbps, though most networks still run at 100 Mbps. If you had a network card that could exceed 1000 Mbps, you'd have paid four figures for it and installed it by hand, in which case, you wouldn't be here asking this question.
Perhaps your video was very compressible?
posted by fogster at 7:41 PM on October 27, 2008
Oops. I was thinking 900 megabits, not megabytes. Yeah. It's impossible with the transfer rates of hard drives and gigabit network cards these days. If the whole video was cached in ram, that would eliminate the hard drive bottleneck, but not the network card.
posted by zsazsa at 7:51 PM on October 27, 2008
posted by zsazsa at 7:51 PM on October 27, 2008
900 MB in 3 seconds? Impossible.
Are you sure youre not misreading it somehow? Or perhaps you uploaded it earlier, forgot, and the app just showed you the file with the same name? I cant even do 900 MB to the computer 2 feet away from me with gigabyte. Heck, I cant even move a file that big between two fast disks in the same computer.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:59 PM on October 27, 2008
Are you sure youre not misreading it somehow? Or perhaps you uploaded it earlier, forgot, and the app just showed you the file with the same name? I cant even do 900 MB to the computer 2 feet away from me with gigabyte. Heck, I cant even move a file that big between two fast disks in the same computer.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:59 PM on October 27, 2008
Response by poster: @damn dirty ape: that's what I was thinking, but I double checked, and nope.. the file was one I had JUST finished downloading in the first place.
@zsazsa: thanks for the help but I only understood about half of what you said :) But I am definitely not connected to the internet at gigabit speeds, otherwise ALL my uploads/downloads would be super fast, right?
@fogster: yeah sorry I've never been good with the byte/bit thing.. and what would qualify a video as "very compressible?"
---
I'm gone on to upload other videos, and I'm back to my usual 60-100kbps... oh well. Miracle?
posted by qvinx at 8:26 PM on October 27, 2008
@zsazsa: thanks for the help but I only understood about half of what you said :) But I am definitely not connected to the internet at gigabit speeds, otherwise ALL my uploads/downloads would be super fast, right?
@fogster: yeah sorry I've never been good with the byte/bit thing.. and what would qualify a video as "very compressible?"
---
I'm gone on to upload other videos, and I'm back to my usual 60-100kbps... oh well. Miracle?
posted by qvinx at 8:26 PM on October 27, 2008
Have you verified that your upload was successful? That is, that your video streams from veoh.com properly? Most hard drives would be hard pressed to read off a 900MB file in 3 seconds, so it's very likely that there was a glitch rather than a miraculously fast upload.
posted by jedicus at 9:06 PM on October 27, 2008
posted by jedicus at 9:06 PM on October 27, 2008
Best answer: Maybe the very beginning of the upload process recognizes the file (per metadata or checksum) as one it already has uploaded, and just gives you another pointer to the file.
I don't know enough about video formats to know whether this is possible based on a file's initial information, but it would definitely work for some data types, and some upload mechanisms.
posted by rokusan at 10:27 PM on October 27, 2008
I don't know enough about video formats to know whether this is possible based on a file's initial information, but it would definitely work for some data types, and some upload mechanisms.
posted by rokusan at 10:27 PM on October 27, 2008
Most PC hard disks these days are good for about 50 to 60 megabytes per second raw transfer rate. Add file system overhead and that comes down to maybe 40 to 50 megabytes per second. So just to move a 900 megabyte file off your disk and into RAM is going to take at least 18 seconds. No way did it go over a network in 3.
the file was one I had JUST finished downloading in the first place
Then there's a fair chance that veoh already had a copy of it too, and rokusan's explanation is correct.
posted by flabdablet at 11:46 PM on October 27, 2008
the file was one I had JUST finished downloading in the first place
Then there's a fair chance that veoh already had a copy of it too, and rokusan's explanation is correct.
posted by flabdablet at 11:46 PM on October 27, 2008
Response by poster: @jedicus: yes the upload was successful. i was able to watch the whole thing online on a friend's computer.
yeah the only possible explanation seems to be rokusan's.
my original download source was not from veoh though.
posted by qvinx at 1:57 PM on October 28, 2008
yeah the only possible explanation seems to be rokusan's.
my original download source was not from veoh though.
posted by qvinx at 1:57 PM on October 28, 2008
Was the data original like video you just shot with your phone or was it something that would be everywhere like an SNL video clip? If it was the former and it appeared in 3 seconds then it woudl be truly bizarre.
posted by damn dirty ape at 2:35 PM on October 28, 2008
posted by damn dirty ape at 2:35 PM on October 28, 2008
Best answer: my original download source was not from veoh though
Even so: you're not the only person who downloaded that video, and you're not veoh's only user, and there do exist assorted mechanisms that veoh could easily be using to use to spot duplicate uploads. It makes a lot of sense that they would do this, since it would save them buckets of bandwidth for popular material.
posted by flabdablet at 3:03 PM on October 28, 2008
Even so: you're not the only person who downloaded that video, and you're not veoh's only user, and there do exist assorted mechanisms that veoh could easily be using to use to spot duplicate uploads. It makes a lot of sense that they would do this, since it would save them buckets of bandwidth for popular material.
posted by flabdablet at 3:03 PM on October 28, 2008
There are probably also assorted mechanisms that I should be using to use to spot duplicate phrases before clicking Post. Sigh.
posted by flabdablet at 3:05 PM on October 28, 2008
posted by flabdablet at 3:05 PM on October 28, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Why don't you try it again and see what speed you get?
posted by zsazsa at 7:38 PM on October 27, 2008