Cost of streaming?

This obviously depends on the terms of your broadband contract. 

I would imagine most this day and age are “unlimited” and hence nothing to be concerned about. 

.sjb

As J B says above ..most packages are  "fair usage" unlimited

Probably best to go for a 40 mb download speed or about.. thought I would have thought you could manage with less... depending on if your tidal deal is hifi or normal quality

Check with your service provider. Here in the States, broadband to home never has data limits. Pricing is based on speed of service.  40Meg down should be plenty fast.

Sloop John B posted:

This obviously depends on the terms of your broadband contract. 

I would imagine most this day and age are “unlimited” and hence nothing to be concerned about. 

.sjb

Yes, unless you are going for a basic low cost package or perhaps 4G service, many twisted pair broadband services are not metred. If you are the main user in your house, you will almost certainly find 4Mbps is fine for Tidal Hi-Fi.

I still need to get some idea of how much streaming will cost

If I stream Tidal for say 4 hours how much data will that equate to

Why stream it all, download offline all you need.

NIMRODMR2P,

Have a read of this.Should give you all the info you need.

https://www.thrillist.com/amph...streaming-music-apps

Tidal HiFi

A Tidal Hifi subscription gives users the ability to stream tracks in lossless quality, which are uncompressed files compared to the Premium subscription's "high quality" tracks.

Top streaming quality: 1411 kbps
One hour of streaming eats through: 635MB
Streaming time until 1GB of data is used: 1.6 hours

This looks as if streaming is going to be costly at hi-fi quality, this was not mentioned by my Naim dealer!!

Eight hours of listening at "high quality" (320 KBPS ) will consume about 1GB of data. More info here.

A  =  Your monthly data limit in MB
B =   The average number of hours a day are you going to be listening to music.
C =   The percentage of the time  are you using Tidal HiFi. *
D =   The percentage of the time  are you using basic Tidal, Spotify or internet radio. *
E =   The cost per MB once you've exceeded your allowed limit.

Cost =  ( (1.41 / 8 * 360 * B * C / 100 * 30.4) + (0.32 / 8 * 360 * B * D / 100 * 30.4) - A ) * E

* These specifically do not include the percentage of time time listening to music ripped from CDs or downloaded as these don't incur on-line data charges.

(Speed is a red herring even a 4Mbps service is fast enough.)

Obsydian posted:

Why stream it all, download offline all you need.

There’s something I’m missing here between streaming and downloading - how does one download anything at all ‘offline’ in a broadband context?

KR, J

Dr_J posted:

Obsydian posted:

Why stream it all, download offline all you need.

There’s something I’m missing here between streaming and downloading - how does one download anything at all ‘offline’ in a broadband context?

KR,

Two methods available with Tidal, purpose here is to download off WiFi then either listen on the move say with a mobile or straight to your Naim product. 

1. Download music within Tidal say in the Album or playlist tap the download icon (under shuffle icon) will turn blue. Limit here for storage is your phone or tablet memory, if Android use a big SD card and in Tidal setting change storage to the external storage. Note you can still stream non downloaded tracks though.

2. As 1 but a step further as only allows playback of downloaded media. Go to Tidal settings and select offline.

One last tip whilst in settings uncheck the optimised playback, otherwise you will get a mix of low and high quality music dependant on the network speed, Tidals way to ensure no buffering issues if poor network speeds.

Shame Naim don't offer a Tidal download with say DRM as any mobile device to USB or Uniti Serve, then play direct from your Naim avoiding any other links.

Obsydian posted:

Dr_J posted:

Obsydian posted:

Why stream it all, download offline all you need.

There’s something I’m missing here between streaming and downloading - how does one download anything at all ‘offline’ in a broadband context?

KR,

Two methods available with Tidal, purpose here is to download off WiFi then either listen on the move say with a mobile or straight to your Naim product. 

1. Download music within Tidal say in the Album or playlist tap the download icon (under shuffle icon) will turn blue. Limit here for storage is your phone or tablet memory, if Android use a big SD card and in Tidal setting change storage to the external storage. Note you can still stream non downloaded tracks though.

2. As 1 but a step further as only allows playback of downloaded media. Go to Tidal settings and select offline.

One last tip whilst in settings uncheck the optimised playback, otherwise you will get a mix of low and high quality music dependant on the network speed, Tidals way to ensure no buffering issues if poor network speeds.

Thanks for this, but doesn’t downloading also consume the OP’s broadband data allowance, assuming their WiFi is connected to the back of their broadband modem/router?

With apologies if I’m being a bit slow on the uptake here.

KR, J

Unless of course, the WiFi approach means download once play often whereas streaming requires a download every time a track is played ?

KR, J

nimrodmr2p posted:

Tidal HiFi

A Tidal Hifi subscription gives users the ability to stream tracks in lossless quality, which are uncompressed files compared to the Premium subscription's "high quality" tracks.

 

Top streaming quality: 1411 kbps
One hour of streaming eats through: 635MB
Streaming time until 1GB of data is used: 1.6 hours

 

This looks as if streaming is going to be costly at hi-fi quality, this was not mentioned by my Naim dealer!!

Costly? Unlimited home broadband is as cheap as chips... Surely if you can afford Naim, a few pounds for a decent broadband deal won‘t put you on toast and beans for your evening tea... 

Dr_J posted:

Unless of course, the WiFi approach means download once play often whereas streaming requires a download every time a track is played ?

KR, J

Correct that's exactly it (at least when applied to internet streaming).

Streaming can be used two ways...

Internet streaming (Tidal, Spotify, etc.).
Local streaming (from a NAS or computer or other local data store, using data downloaded or ripped from a CD)

The first uses your internet bandwidth for each playback, the second only uses your bandwidth for a one-off download (or not at all for a ripped CD).

Dr_J posted:

Unless of course, the WiFi approach means download once play often whereas streaming requires a download every time a track is played ?

KR, J

Yes that's what I was referring to.

Sorry assumed streaming cost was related to 4G mobile, as rare now to find broadband home that is now unlimited.

Obsydian posted:

Dr_J posted:

Unless of course, the WiFi approach means download once play often whereas streaming requires a download every time a track is played ?

KR, J

Yes that's what I was referring to.

Sorry assumed streaming cost was related to 4G mobile, as rare now to find broadband home that is now unlimited.

This will, of course, vary from one country to the next, but I’ve noticed recently that there appear to be more and more ‘deals’ from UK ISPs where they have snuck in a download limit. I suspect this is a sneaky way of offering contracts that appear to be cheap, which the providers know full well are going to catch some people unawares if they sign up in a hurry. 

Important tip is turn off that damn adaptive optimised setting to maintain best quality.

Obsydian posted:

Shame Naim don't offer a Tidal download with say DRM as any mobile device to USB or Uniti Serve, then play direct from your Naim avoiding any other links.

The idea of adding Tidal offline capability (per mobile phones) into next gen Naim streamers has been raised in a “features request” discussion... but more voices would add more weight, so don’t be shy about suggesting this to Naim support!!

Regads alan 

alan33 posted:

Obsydian posted:

Shame Naim don't offer a Tidal download with say DRM as any mobile device to USB or Uniti Serve, then play direct from your Naim avoiding any other links.

The idea of adding Tidal offline capability (per mobile phones) into next gen Naim streamers has been raised in a “features request” discussion... but more voices would add more weight, so don’t be shy about suggesting this to Naim support!!

Regads alan 

Hi Alan - didn't know such a thread existed will head over with comments.

It is probably a bad time to invest in tidal specific code at this time or maybe at any time until the fate of the big streaming services is more clear.

Obsydian posted:

alan33 posted:.

in a “features request” discussion... 

Hi Alan - didn't know such a thread existed will head over with comments.

Hi Obsydian -

Here’s where I acknowledge that, to the best of my recollection, the features discussion I mentioned was in the beta testers’ thread, not here in in Streaming. Apologies. Since Naim don’t monitor every forum thread, I meant that it would be good for you to email or otherwise contact them directly to add your voice to the idea. Others have mentioned that “vendor specific” code development is not a big priority at the moment (eg adding Qobuz, Deezer, or whatever directly a la Tidal and Spotify rather than via ChromeCast) hence new Tidal features (like local storage in offline mode for the new Uniti series) may also take a back seat to other feature improvements... who knows. Anyway, an idea that addresses lots of known issues (but creates its own challenges)  

Regards alan