Study: YouTube using too much bandwidth on streaming devices?

[roakes]

I have YouTube Premium and over the last few days I've been having problems when watching content on either my LG G1 TV or my Nvidia Shield. The main problem being that videos would buffer, freeze and stutter. I have a 250Mb fibre connection and had no problems until this week. So to troubleshoot I thought I'd check what my router was showing for bandwidth usage on those devices, in case it was QoS or something throttling them.

 

What I discovered was quite the opposite, the YouTube apps on my LG TV and Nvidia Shield were using WAY more than the recommended bandwidth.

 

I have a TP-Link Deco mesh router, so it can't produce graphs as I'd like, but I sat there watching the bandwidth usage of the device during playback and noted the rough sustained average Mbps it was using:

 

 

This was the video I was using to test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr2bpY1n4EM

 

Quick note. I also tested my Windows 11 laptop with Chrome and the YouTube app on my Pixel 7a on Android 14, both of which behaved much more as expected and the sustained bandwidth usage was minimal. On a 4K video the only way I could get it to spike was to jump to different points in the video, where the bandwidth would spike to 60Mbps as it buffered for a split second then back to pretty much nothing.

 

After seeing some similar symptom complaints from other users on Firesticks, they suggested that they were seeing performance differences if logged in or out. I tried logging out of my YouTube Premium account and instantly on a 4K video the sustained Mbps dropped to a normal rate without any playback issues. Signed back in and then it was back up to using 250mb+ sustained. I also noticed that it was using a constant 1-2Mbps upload too, which is very strange.

 

So I suspect this is something that is either affecting specific accounts, or is something specific to Premium.

 

Anyone else able to replicate or contribute to the investigation?

 

Reported it to Google here: https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/248888555?hl=en

 

 

[ki8aras]

doesnt premium supposedly have higher bitrates? (thus the extra bandwidth) or is that on specific videos?

[roakes]

15 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

doesnt premium supposedly have higher bitrates? (thus the extra bandwidth) or is that on specific videos?

Premium has higher bitrate 1080p available, but all quality levels are eating excessive sustained bandwidth, but only when logged in

[ki8aras]

Just now, roakes said:

Premium has higher bitrate 1080p available, but all quality levels are eating 10x the sustained bandwidth

im a premium user myself and i havent seen any behavior like this, so maybe the issue is intermittent or region dependent , for the time being you can bandwidth limit the devices to get around it

[roakes]

26 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

im a premium user myself and i havent seen any behavior like this, so maybe the issue is intermittent or region dependent , for the time being you can bandwidth limit the devices to get around it

It's definitely not intermittent, has been this way for days now and limiting the bandwidth just makes the playback issues worse.

 

Are you using premium on streaming devices? So far I've tested the behaviour on my LG TV, Nvidia Shield and Chromecast (with Google TV) and they all do the same, I've seen reports from Firestick and Roku users too with the same symptoms. Not everyone is reporting the bandwidth use, but reporting the same playback symptoms and maybe haven't dug deep into it yet.

[ki8aras]

4 minutes ago, roakes said:

It's definitely not intermittent, has been this way for days now and limiting the bandwidth just makes the playback issues worse.

 

Are you using premium on streaming devices? So far I've tested the behaviour on my LG TV, Nvidia Shield and Chromecast (with Google TV) and they all do the same, I've seen reports from Firestick users too with the same symptoms. Not everyone is reporting the bandwidth use, but reporting the same playback symptoms and maybe haven't dug deep into it yet.

all i have is my f&u tv but i havent encountered anything similar so far

[Mark Kaine]

well, not to be rude, but that's what you get for paying the most evil company on earth (tm) for "premium" , err, "service"?

 

i recommend greenpeace or something instead ~

 

 

1 hour ago, roakes said:

Premium has higher bitrate 1080p available, but all quality levels are eating excessive sustained bandwidth, but only when logged in

in all seriousness,  that sounds like ur isp throttling when you try using the "premium" service... tried stats for nerds? that should show u all drop outs...

[roakes]

53 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

well, not to be rude, but that's what you get for paying the most evil company on earth for "premium" , err, "service"?

 

i recommend greenpeace or something instead ~

 

 

in all seriousness,  that sounds like ur isp throttling when you try using the "premium" service... tried stats for nerds? that should show u all drop outs...

 

Stats for nerds mostly shows the buffer emptying and refilling depending on the performance issue at the time, it's not consistent. But what is consistent is the incredibly high download throughput.

 

For example, I'm watching Apple TV+ right now using the app on my LG TV, it's 4K HDR and the download throughput from the TV is hitting no higher than 60Mbps and only now and again as I assume it uses sporadic sessions to top up the buffer, dropping to Kbps in between.

 

Whereas watching any 4K YouTube content pegs the download throughput at a constant 200-250Mbps on any dedicated streaming device in the house. That would be a weird way to implement throttling at an ISP level  Also those others that have reported the same seem to be in other countries (I'm in the UK).

 

[HenrySalayne]

17 hours ago, roakes said:

Anyone else able to replicate or contribute to the investigation?

I know that Youtube is loading videos in bursts. Or at least it was a few month ago. "Free users" might have lost this feature now.

Youtube will basically load a bunch of chunks of the video with as much speed as possible to create a healthy buffer which Youtube then only keeps  "topped up".

My theory would be that this behaviour / premium feature might overwhelm your TV or Shield. They might not have enough RAM to hold the buffer. They will load the same chunk over and over again, resulting in stuttering, lags and increased bandwidth requirements.

If you have any way to monitor ressource usage on the affected devices, it might give you some insight in what actually is going on.

 

And it's the natural flow of things that high download rates will result in high upload rates. The device has to request all the data being send to it. That's nothing to worry about.

 

I hope Google can quickly replicate the issue and fix it.

[roakes]

Unfortunately my router doesn't have decent monitoring, but another user on my Google support thread does! This was from a 4K stream but interestingly they don't have a Premium account, yet they still see significant differences depending on if they're logged in or not, so it doesn't seem to be specific to Premium functionality.

 

[BrandonLatzig]

23 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

"Free users" might have lost this feature now.

Personally, this seems like a bit of a..dumb feature to only give to premium users, especially if it isnt advertised. since if it isnt advertised why would anyone get the subscription for it?

[roakes]

FYI things seem to have settled down, back to normal since yesterday, so I assume they fixed something server side