Play Videos As Audio: Data Usage?

Hi,

Long time BeyondPod user, first time poster. I could not find the answer to my question via search.

I frequently use BeyondPod in my car, while commuting. Sometimes I like to listen to video, and the "Play Videos As Audio" setting is quite handy. But I can't help but wonder about the data usage. Sometimes I listen to Youtube videos, and since I couldn't figure out how to do that with BeyondPod, I use the app "uListen," which downloads only the audio portion to my phone (I believe it does not download the whole video).

So, my question is, when I have enabled this Play Videos As Audio setting:

• Is BeyondPod downloading the full video anyway, and just playing the audio portion of the video?
• Is BeyondPod downloading only the audio portion (like uListen)?

Depending on the answer, this may morph into a feature request.

Thanks!

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by discostu5

Is BeyondPod downloading the full video anyway, and just playing the audio portion of the video?

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Yes. It's the same whether you download first (in which case BP doesn't know in advance whether you're going to play audio or video - there's nothing to stop you changing the setting at any point - including potentially part-way through playback if you want to, so it HAS to have the full video file downloaded), or whether you stream. The mechanism is the same for streaming as for playing downloaded content, except that the content file you're playing isn't local to your device.

BP simply plays the audio portion of the file named in the feed's enclosure. It uses Android's built in player, so unless that has provision for any clever data handling when streaming the audio portion of video files - which I very much doubt - BP can't use what's not there.

If you're concerned about cellular data usage, the easiest thing to do is to download to your device while you're on WiFi, rather than streaming.

Julie