Videos, Pictures, Music

Some things to know

Bandwidth is the amount of signal your community's system can share at once. It is a fixed amount and so if you are doing something that uses a lot of bandwidth, (for example, watching a You Tube clip),  others may not have a fast connection at the same time. Photo coutesy of under Creative Commons licence.

Monthly Quota or allowance is limited in your community to 20 GB per month. That is less than 1 Gb per day, so you need to be very careful with what you use. Other people are sharing the quota and want their share. After you use your quota, the signal will become extremely slow.

Streaming means that sound or video is coming from the Internet to your computer but it is not recoded to play later. Each time you watch avideo, you download the whole thing again. Streaming sites will chew up your bandwidth in a few days.


Watching Videos

You can watch videos using You Tube, by downloading from ITunes, from web sites and from Facebook. You can do this from a computer or smart phone or tablet. 
You need to know that
  • You Tube and Facebook streams video to you - this means it is not stored on your computer and every time you download and watch a clip it uses up your down load quota.
  • Videos do use lots of download quota, so watch them only for important purposes and only once if practical. If a video is more than a few minutes, abandon the download.
  • I-devices will not play some videos because I-devices do not support Flash movies.
  • It is illegal to watch pornographic videos and such content is monitored at this site.
  • Itunes videos download once and then you can play them over and over, limiting your use of download allowance. Use I-tunes over You Tube.

Sharing videos

Videos are fun to make and you often have them given to you or sent to you. It takes bandwidth to upload or share a video, but it is fun once in a while . 

You can share the source of the video and that uses little bandwidth but be mindful people you are sending the link to, may not have much bandwidth or download allowance either.

Listening to music

You can use radio stations and You Tube to listen to music or watch video clips. This is streamed to you and will use up bandwidth and quota. Try not to listen to music off the Internet.  It will be more efficient to download music from I-Tunes and play it on your computer or device. Some i-Tunes music is free but not very much. Music bought online is usually much much cheaper than buying a CD.


iTunes is both a program (or app) and an online store. It is also the program which runs when you plug an i-device into a computer.

The iTunes system allows you to manage your music and downloaded audio like radio sketches, speeches and recorded talks ( For example podcasts from the ABC).
You can put music into your computer by running iTunes software and putting a CD into the CD carrier. ITunes will copy the music from your CD to your computer. When you plug a smart phone or tablet into the computer, it will then transfer your music to the device ( called a sync).
You can also buy music off of the iTunes store. This can be then shared to three devices.
You can also use iTunes to buy books (though thousands are free). Then iTunes will transfer books to your mobile device when you synch them. Downlaoding books is very bandwidth and quota friendly.
You will need to set up an  iTunes account to use the service. If you purchase through iTunes, use a site like paypal to make payments rather than upload your credit card data into itunes. Paypal lets you pay movney into an account so you pay with debit rather than credit. Safer all round.


People love sharing pictures on social media sites. They are a great way for family to stay in touch and also a great way to promote your work and outstation or homeland.
Uploading images and looking at them does use up bandwidth and usage allowance.
Some photo sharing sites are currently blocked on the Activ8 Connection. We know that Photo Bucket, Flickr and Picassa are blocked for uploading and viewing. We know that Google Plus which uses a https: protocol is not. We will share news about theis when we have further information.


Skype is a program and Internet service which lets you make video and voice calls to another person listed with Skype. Some peopel also use Skype to make phone cals to mobiles or participate in teleconferences. This service usually costs. Skype does use bandwidth but it does not pull too much. Limit calls to 5 minutes if you can. 

As an alternative some people use their Face Time option on their iphone.


 Video Conferencing on the web

 This option is often available for children to participate in classes from the schools of distance education. It does use up bandwidth, so where possible switch to voice only after you had said hello or showed what you needed to show the teacher.  Some peopel use Skype for videoconferencing which is fine but once again, be sure to turn off video once it is not necessary. You often have a better more relaibale conversation with the video off.