"Bandwidth Used" inconsistancies.

[BasharOfTheAges]

So, over the last 6-8 months i've noticed something odd. I keep a record of my 'bandwidth used by your videos' numbers on a month to month basis and after a month goes by, I update a spreadsheet with the data that's on there. After A while, I went back and checked where I was month to month and saw that previous month's numbers had changed from what I had initially taken down. This has happened every couple of months so far this year since I noticed it initially this spring. Any idea what might be going on?

[Nya-chan Production]

Time travellers?

[BasharOfTheAges]

I was thinking more actual (Julian calender) vs theoretical (30-days per month) calculations used to figure those old numbers out on the table.

[Corran]

There is a bug on the bandwidth usage page where streaming data is retrieved along with downloads. The reason being the data is stored in the same database table as regular downloads and the queries on that page were never updated to exclude that data. Also for streaming, if a user re-watches a preview, a new row is not added. Instead, the date of the "download" is updated. Therefore for anyone with streaming enabled, their stats may jump around a bit if people later go back to re-watch the preview a month later. Additionally, since previews are smaller than the actually download the bandwidth data is a bit skewed for those with a lot of previews. Streaming bandwidth needs to be considered separately based on view count and the size of the preview encode. >_>

I have no idea though why you are having any irregularities. You've opted out of streaming and as a result no streaming related data is muddying your collected data. The collaborations you've participated in with streaming don't effect bandwidth figures on your page, only the page of the person who entered the video in the database.

What exactly are you noticing? The query responsible for retrieving that data grabs all of your downloads for the past year and then groups/sums by calendar month. It goes by the first day of the historical month, so if you view it right now, it will present data from 1 Dec, 2009 to today.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Last I checked I'm allowing streaming... Or at least thought I was.

Thanks for the info though. Interesting bug too.

[Corran]

Last I checked I'm allowing streaming... Or at least thought I was.

Thanks for the info though. Interesting bug too.

Oops, I was logged into the forum but not the main site when I was looking at your profile. >_>

Although I stepped away from coding/site stuff, I'll look at addressing the bug. I should have dealt with it back when the preview system was implemented...

[Corran]

The bug has been dealt with and a new stat has been added to display an estimated bandwidth used by previews. The new stat my be skewed since preview view count is based on the number of times the playlist for the flash player is loaded. This will trigger a count regardless of whether or not playback is actually started. In other words, the videos on the front page that don't autoplay may register more view counts than actual views.

[NS]

daw, now muh numbers are all different ;__;

[BasharOfTheAges]

Thanks for taking the time to fix something so trivial.

So, are the month-by-month numbers only downloads now and the previews don't factor into those totals?

[Corran]

Thanks for taking the time to fix something so trivial.

So, are the month-by-month numbers only downloads now and the previews don't factor into those totals?

That is correct, only the date of the most recent view by a user is tracked so breaking down by month is not possible.