And I'm always such a stickler for going easy on the data usage....

[GabeU]

Certainly a first for me.  LOL. 

And no, this is not data loss.  I knew exactly what I was doing.   

[maratsade]

Gabe, you went into the dreaded orange zone!! 🙂  And here I was miffed yesterday because some update ate 4 gigabytes of my data, but I still have quite a bit left, and still in the green. I don't like seeing that orange bar...

[Liz]

Haha, good thing you have plenty of token bytes to fall back on, Gabe!

-Liz

[GabeU]

Yep, the dreaded orange zone!  LOL.  I've been in it before, but not this much and not for this long.  Normally it's just for a day and at the beginning of the month. 

I took Windows 10 off of a notebook and installed Windows 8 (from a DVD), then upgraded to Windows 8.1 through the Windows Store.  I was then having a few problems with it, found out that I could just perform a clean install of Windows 8.1 on the computer and it would activate (even though it originally came with 8 and the embedded product key for such), so I then downloaded the Windows 8.1 ISO and installed it.  So, updates for initial Windows 8 install, then downloading the upgrade to 8.1 through the Windows Store, then updates, then the problems, then downloading the Windows 8.1 ISO, cleanly installing it, then updates again...it added up.  LOL. 

Had I not messed with the notebook I would be at about 2 GB Anytime and 5GB Bonus Bytes.  I could have just used the Bonus Bytes for everything, but I got impatient and too tired.  LOL.   

[GabeU]

No doubt.  If after a year I haven't used any of it I might have a Netflix movie fest.  LOL. 

[maratsade]

Wow. How long did all that take? The updates must've been really big.

[maratsade]

So, what, 6 movies? LOL

[BirdDog]

Actually, 21 GB would get a person about 35 movies figuring low definition at 2 hours per movie. An hour of Netflix normally uses about 300 MB for me.

[GabeU]

The download of the initial upgrade to 8.1 through the Windows Store and the download of the 8.1 ISO didn't take very long at all, but the updates took FOREVER.  In addition, after the clean install of 8.1, I had a problem where the update agent wouldn't even connect to the servers, so I had to manually download a couple of things to get it set right so it could then download it's approximately 1.2GB of updates.  The Store download of 8.1 and the 8.1 ISO download were a little short of 6GB combined, but the updates were at least 5GB for all three times.  And even though the notebook isn't used much and I use it more for a test bed than anything else, it was still worth all of it as it runs MUCH better with Windows 8.1 than it did with Windows 10.  It's just too "weak" to run Windows 10 well.     

[GabeU]

Actually, I think I might spoil myself with three HD movies.  Woohoo!  LMAO.   I've been waiting forever for them to play "The Last Emperor" (1987) on one of the movie channels to no avail (literally years), so I will at least watch that one in HD, if nothing else. 

[BirdDog]

Yea, I just don't see the fascination with HD. I'm fine with SD and lower but like you said we grew up with analog television and the only HD was at the movie theater. Low definition is fine on my big TV and not worth the high data use IMO.

[BirdDog]

PS: Netflix is implementing some state-of-the-art compression techniques which will make things look even better at lower definitions but it takes a while to convert a huge library like they have.

[maratsade]

"Actually, 21 GB would get a person about 35 movies figuring low definition at 2 hours per movie. "

Party time for Gabe!

[maratsade]

I have no problems with SD at all -- I don't really notice much difference, tbh.

[maratsade]

It's worth it to keep things updated,  but holy cow, those updates can be massive.

[GabeU]

For the most part SD is fine with me.  After a minute or two I don't even notice the difference.  And really, with the exception of little writing in weight loss supplement commercials and the like, HD isn't that much of an advantage, anyway.  LOL. 

I do like wide screen, though. 

[maratsade]

But you can get wide screen with SD, right? I don't even notice that. I've noticed some old shows display in a square screen.

[GabeU]

It all depends on what they broadcast it in, but they do broadcast some SD things in widescreen.  One thing I hate, though, is when they take a 4:3 film or TV show and convert it to stretch-o-vision.  They'd be better off just leaving it at pan and scan. 

[GW]

HDTV is great. That's about all I watch but everything I watch is antenna fed TV. Good ol' OTA 🙂

[GW]

HDTV is great. That's about all I watch but everything I watch is antenna fed TV. Good ol' OTA 🙂

[BirdDog]

Digital OTA TV is awesome! Best move the broadcast industry made in decades IMO, although I think the FCC forced it. Thank you FCC!