Super download speeds?

[sleeper]

You guys, you guys, seriously !! (BTW - hi all )

I have been following the posts on the website for quite a while, but thought I have to share this with you.

I've been looking at getting a Media center PC running at home, and discovered the "official tv channel guide for ZA" on the following site. I've cleared my cache and tried to download it from work (512K leased line) and several other places, all with the same result. On my 256KB package, I get a download speed of +-100KB/s... can someone else try this as well to confirm this ? I doubt it is a caching issue, cause if it is, I am sure my HDD will be able to beat the 100KB/s transfer rate...

It is an XML file, so I don't know if there's some sneaky compression or something happening in the background, but, hell, it sure feels nice to see IE saying it is downloading at 100KB+.... Prob. what the blokes overseas experience every day...

Go to http://download.flash.za.org/schedule/zaxmltv.php
and on the right hand side where it says "select channels", select all the DSTV channels in the list box, TICK the download box (otherwise IE just dies) and click submit....

Ooooohh, is this what real broadband will feel like (still probably bad compared to overseas) ? 13.1MB in 2 min 55 sec?


Well, if I am right and stuff does not get cached, then this is a download speed we might HOPEFULLY get one day....

Is this just the way XML gets compressed?

 

[ProAsm]

Wow yeah, wonder what it is.
I marked all the options which added up to 13.4 megs and downloaded at approx 600KB/sec.
It took about 20 seconds to download the whole file and in Windows explorer its seen as 13,786,329 bytes - wierd.

 

[werner]

(thread hijack) sleeper, for loads of mce info pertinent to s.a. go here http://techies.co.za/phpBB2/index.php?c=20

 

[Pox]

Me too, this is slightly strange.

 

[Scooby_Doo]

Nope no diff for me still downloading norm

 

[TheRoDent]

Could just be HTTP compression guys. XML compresses very well.

 

[roddyp]

holy crap man...

on my 512k package, the download took about 30 secs......

 

[TheRoDent]

No big secret. It's just HTTP compression. Nothing fancy. Just a clever site-writer trying to save on his bandwidth. Most modern browsers understands what is called "HTTP compression" This is similar to zip files, except it occurs on an HTTP level, when accessing files on the web. It uses gzip compression to compress text transferred from the web server to your PC's browser. It saves people money.

If I manually compress the zaxmltv.xml file, it shrinks to around 1.2meg. That's why it seems like it's downloading at such a phenomenal rate.

Our broadband still sucks

0x0000   4500 05d4 1ca3 0000 3e06 d593 c31a 0dea    E.......>.......
0x0010   a592 0e57 0050 0506 7fc5 6a6d e84c a47d    ...W.P....jm.L.}
0x0020   8010 4000 954a 0000 0101 080a 0125 966c    [email protected].......%.l
0x0030   0003 221e 4854 5450 2f31 2e31 2032 3030    ..".HTTP/1.1.200
0x0040   204f 4b0d 0a54 7261 6e73 6665 722d 456e    .OK..Transfer-En
0x0050   636f 6469 6e67 3a20 6368 756e 6b65 640d    coding:.chunked.
[...snip...]
0x01a0   6e6f 2d63 6163 6865 0d0a 436f 6e74 656e    no-cache..Conten
0x01b0   742d 4469 7370 6f73 6974 696f 6e3a 2061    t-Disposition:.a
0x01c0   7474 6163 686d 656e 743b 2066 696c 656e    ttachment;.filen
0x01d0   616d 653d 7a61 786d 6c74 762e 786d 6c0d    ame=zaxmltv.xml.
[b]0x01e0   0a43 6f6e 7465 6e74 2d45 6e63 6f64 696e    .Content-Encodin
0x01f0   673a 2067 7a69 700d 0a56 6172 793a 2041    g:.gzip..Vary:.A[/b]
0x0200   6363 6570 742d 456e 636f 6469 6e67 0d0a    ccept-Encoding..

 

[regardtv]

Our broadband still sucks

hehe. Well said