Cheap fast reliable internet

[Burgerman]

I just offered 83 for this.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/405821501044

It is a wifi modem that is tri band and so crazy fast as long as your wifi card is also capable of silly speeds. Mine is, I swapped it in a diffferent thread.
And, it allows me to fit a sim card. This thing takes 5G sims. Like the EE or 3G ones. At £20 a month. For totally unlimited high seed internet.

No wires, no cable, no need. A simple unlimited 5G fone card.

Now when it arrives I can dump the cable by Virgin. Its now slow, unreliable and overpriced.
Theres another advantage.
It has a phone socket. It gives you an alternative "land" line. That is FREE.

Yes its ugly. I dont care!

This depends on you having 5G where you live. If not, then theres also an external directional version that lives outdoors. So you wont be left out!

[martin007]

How much does 100% new cost?

[Burgerman]

You can get 4G sim routers for £50 amazon.
If you want 5G theres less choice but some are cheapish. But if you want super fast wifi, etc too then it starts to get up to 200 to £300.

But eBay has lots used as new.

[martin007]

The question is how much you have saved.

[Burgerman]

You can get 4G sim routers for £50 amazon.
If you want 5G theres less choice but some are cheapish. But if you want super fast wifi, etc too then it starts to get up to 200 to £300.

But eBay has lots used as new.

My £83 offer was accepted. Its on its way.
Currently have a 4G one (rock solid at 50mb unlimited sim sometimes it does 100mb.)

5G is way way faster! Already around 900mb, soon when networks are upgraded up to 5x that! up to 4500mb per second.

[Burgerman]

I swapped the sim for a 3 sim. (Three network) as their 5G network is the best around here. Same price, £20 per month, (unlimited calls, sms, that I wont use) but more importantly NO DATA limits. At all. No traffic shaping, no AUP to comply with. All you can eat!

I have tested it for days, never get less than 475mbps at its slowest, which is still very fast. Usually its a minimum of 600mbps. sometimes it jumps to a strong 700 plus. I suspect it would stay at 700 or above with an external antenna. But this is already huge overkill so why bother. Nobody really even needs even 50.

So why cable systems?
5G seems to be taking over. Or it will. When people begin to understand that this can be done.

Its big, looks like a white soap dispenser. So I hid it behind my monitor.
Apart from 5G connectivity, it also has all the super fast wifi 6E connecability and speed. Needed to take advantage of that speed. So the box is big as its basically full of fancy antennas and thes need to be specific sizes and spacing.

These are all tuned to various frequencies as 5G uses 700mhz right up to almost 6ghz. Many bands.

[Burgerman]

Here we go!
Same router, same setup...

This guy shows how simple, and how fast his is. He is getting slow upload? Mines around 120mbps up...


youtu.be/RRYca1QNEA4

[Burgerman]

If I take it outside where 3 has a better signal I get 700mbps download approx.

If I bring it in, put it on the window sill next to the glass, I get a worse signal, I still get 635 to 650 mbps down, and around 58mbps up. Thats still really fast. But its less onsistent and it varies at times. I suspect that an external antenna kit, will give me better than 700.

If I connect with my NORD VPN while still on the window ledge I lose a little and get around 500 (a tiny bit less less) as seen below. Which is why NORD is better than most VPNs...

Thats 500mbps of unlimited bandwidth for £20 a month!

[Burgerman]

Now this is just the initial stage of the 5G rollout. It used a sort of hybrid of LTE and 5G and isnt as fast or as consistent as it will soon be.
Right now they are adding basic 5G coverage to many towns and areas. And if you happen to be in a place where theres no 5G or its weak, you will either be limited to the fallback of 4G LTE between 50 and 70mbps, or need fancy expensive antennas to get the right fast signals.

But with 3 you can order, test for a month and return it if its not for you. With an eBay sim router like mine (because I am stingy!) and just a 3 unlimited card I get 2 weeks to cancel the sim card. But I wont be needing to. Quite amazing really.

Your mileage may vary...
Works great here.

[Burgerman]

Right. 2 weeks in, and I have decided this is definitely better than cable. So I cancelled cable.

Speeds are inconsistent.
It varies. Every few hours for about 2 weeks I tested speeds.
Lowest is around 130mbps. Highest is around 740mbps.
Most of the time its around 460mbps.

Thats faster when its at its slowest (about 2% of the time) than my cable connection with Virgin was.
Most of the time its way, way faster! When downloading a backup of this site for e.g it downloads continualy at 38MB/s and thats a limit of the server here not my 5G connection!
All for £20 a month for a "all you can eat" no data or speed limits THREE sim. True no limits, no traffic shaping, no MB limit etc.

So its a wnner!

So to increase speeds and consistency even more I ordered an alloy scaffold pole, (13 feet long) and a wall bracket, and an external 7db gain MIMO 4X4 ultra wide band outdoor antenna.
Should get around 770 down all the time, and 125mbps up. 30ms latency.

https://www.quwireless.com/product/qupa ... l-mimo-4x4

These antennas are direcional, and need to work at high efficiency, low SWR, from 600mhz to 6000ghz... So not exactly cheap!

[Burgerman]

Today, before antenna!

https://www.speedtest.net/result/17774876748

Even ping is decent.

I expect more soon! Especially upload speeds. Maybe 60 t0 100. Thats what I saw when my carer took the router outside on my flat roof. (and 690 down...)

Virgin, are impossible to deal with, to call, to escape from, its like hotel california...

But they are now history.

[Burgerman]

And...
Still no antena yet!

616mbps

Saw 677 earlier! Its getting faster.

[Burgerman]

And now I have an errection!

[Burgerman]

920 GB used since I got this sim router.

What bandwidth limits?

[Burgerman]

When it rained the max speed dropped from 500 to 600mbps, to 330 approx. Because of trees. Theres a wall of huge trees between me and the nearest 5G tower. When they get soaked it attenuates he RF signal in both directions.
While thats still pretty fast, it still annoyed me!

The antenna hasnt improved the dry speeds. But it has removed the drop in performance when the trees are wet. Because now I can pick up a signal from a different further away tower. Where there are no trees in the way. In a different direction.

[Burgerman]

Busiest time, rain:
(worst case, slower downloads and slower uploads)

But this is still very fast. Now for £16.50 per month! No download limits.

[Burgerman]

I am amazed that there are not any of us interested.
Now you would need to have a 5G signal where you live.
And right now 3 (Three) is the fastest by far, and also the only one that has absolutely no bandwidth or other download limits, no traffic shaping, no rules.

If you get the 3 signal where you live then you can get a FREE SIM Router as part of a deal. Including the Sim card. Its just a literal plug and play. Needs only a wall outlet and a window where theres a decent 5G signal. For £!9 a month!

Or a unlocked Sim Router from eBay, for 50 to 100 uk pounds. And a 16.50 Sim card.

You shouldnt require an antenna like mine. I live n an area that is outside of the 5G area. So technically only have outdoor coverage. It worked indoors regardless in a window, but slowed down perodically. Hence an antenna outdoors.

[Williamclark77]

It's interesting how the world's focus has shifted to data sharing over the last decade. Even more interesting is how much data is currently generated by human beings. The sheer storage required is mind boggling, not to mention bandwidth requirements for huge data movers like YouTube, Netflix, Dailymotion, etc.

Things like that 5g router are completely useless to many of us in the world. One day they won't be. There's no 5g signal where I live, and even if there was, it could never reach my house wirelessly due to trees. Infrastructure hasn't been built yet. There's great 5g just a few miles away though.

What's funny, is that I live farther away from civilization than anyone I know. I also have some of the best Internet service. I have a 500mb fiber connection. Upload and download. That's faster than nearly any hard drive can read or write for any extended length of time.

Nothing but a slow congested dsl line was available when I first built my house. I was actually surprised anything was.

A few years ago the power company announced they were running fiber to all of its customers and published a calendar with expected dates. A small communications company ran fiber to the places they wouldn't get to for years to beat them to the punch if the customers agreed to buy the service. And for half the price of the crappy dsl.

Four years ago it would take a day or sometimes two to upload a 2gb video to my website and the Internet would be useless while it was going. No exaggeration. Now I can upload a 2gb video as fast as the server can write it. Usually in under a minute. It takes longer to copy to a thumb drive or one of my older big spinning hard drives I back up stuff to.

[Burgerman]

The world moves on.

My Z8 camera, does 8k 60fps RAW movies.

It FILLS its 2TB card at 700MB per second!
The memory card is PHYSICALLY small but super fast 2TB NVMe SSD.

But when you say:

What's funny, is that I live farther away from civilization than anyone I know. I also have some of the best Internet service. I have a 500mb fiber connection. Upload and download. That's faster than nearly any hard drive can read or write for any extended length of time.

Those old clockwork things?

A modern NVMe drive, such as the one in my removable USB 20gbps caddy can write at that speed continuously till full. Thats around 900MB/s mark. No mbps. So 40x faster!

I have 4 of those 4TB NVMe drives in my desktop PC. And one in my laptop. (Another 2 in USB3 20gbps removables). They write continously at 4GB per second until full... Thats GB! Not gigabit.

So I think your computer may be ready for an upgrade!

Let me show you what file copy looks like on a modern fast PC!

Heres an example.
This is a 122GB file. Actually broken into 28 parts. Its a backup of my laptop.

So far I copied 52% of that complete C drive. Thats a 122GB file. 15 seconds so far! 30 seconds total. At 4GB per second. And thats my laptop!
Thats a 1/4 of a terrabyte per minute!

[Burgerman]

I might add that at 500mbps you would need 30 mins to copy the file that just took 30 seconds. That means the SSDs are copying some 60 times faster! Even by USB its still 40 times faster at 20gbps.

So theres still a good way for the internet to go yet if it is to keep up.

But how far can it go?
We are still dealing with text files right?
And once beyond 8K 120 fps RAW movie files, which I can do now, where else is there to go?

But I remember my mates saying "what do you need a 40MB hard disk for?" Not long ago either. Now a single 45mp raw file is double that. And it can do pixel shift and focus shift and take 120 pictures to create a single 180mPixel file. One photo!

[Williamclark77]

My desktop isn't anything special now. It's probably still in the top 1% of computers though. I built it in 2020. It should be good for my uses for a few more years. I don't plan on building another any time soon. AMD was more expensive but all around better at that point in time.

3rd gen AMD Ryzen 9 3900 12 core CPU
Asus RTX 2060 Super 8gb video card
64gb of DDR4 3200 RAM
Two Intel 1tb M.2 NVMe drives for the OS and backup
Four more older spinning 8tb and 4tb hard drives I already had for movies and redundant backups
I have a few more old 1tb and 2tb spinning hard drives I use a USB to SATA adapter for backing up important stuff and keep in a safe. I am disappointed in those Intel NVME drives. They were great at the time. Even with coolers they slow down quite a bit during large transfers. But still, you're looking at not much time to backup 800gb of stuff even after they slow.

I don't have it constantly overclocked much. No need 98% of the time. It sits humming along at 3.8GHz. It can go over 5GHz when needed for long periods without getting hot enough to throttle. I don't use the video card CUDA for rendering final versions. CPU gives better results, albeit slower and hotter.

I'm still (rarely) shooting with my Canon 90d. I have too much white L Canon glass to switch camps. I personally see zero need for 8k for 99% of uses unless you're having to crop away more than half of the frame. Change lenses or move in that situation. Just my opinion since very few people currently have anything 4k to view the content on, much less 8k.

I have a 4k Hisense PX3 UST shooting onto a Spetra Helios 120 inch screen. Properly calibrated for correctness, not best visual appeal. My computer runs to it so it can be used as a monitor. It's not easy to tell PROPERLY done 1080p content from most 4k, especially at a stupid ultra wide ratio I hate. Good screen filling 16:9 4k content does look better, but not by a huge margin. I, like 99.999% of people in the world, don't have any 8k capable viewing monitor.

The point I'm making, that huge amount of data moving ability you're talking about just is not CURRENTLY necessary for almost everybody. I still have the HUGE cutting edge and expensive 18gb hard drive from the first computer I built. It was unnecessary in 1990 whatever year, but not now.

I really don't see that much being needed for personal use in the foreseeable future either. Most people are happy with content that looks ok on their 5" zombie phones and can be sent by email with a 25mb size limit. And worse, they rely on "the cloud" for their super secret personal storage.

[Burgerman]

8K...

Yes and raw.

It allows for using normal quality digital camera lenses and a 4k output. It allows hand held shooting and huge amount of PC controlled stability and cropping as needed for straigtening horizons, pespective correction, shake removal, etc with zero quality loss with a 4k output. It works really well!

BUT you need a camera that can write 120fps 8K raw data, and a card that can allow a rediculous data write speed. It literally writes at a continuous 700MB per second continually! So almost a Gigabyte per second!

When it comes to crunching 8K raw, and doing image stabilisation etc on that data you need a SERIOUS machine with super fast drives, and at least a 3080Ti card. Mine is 128GB fast ram, 3080Ti, 4x 4TB 7GB per second write speed, and its overclocked to hell, runs all 32 cores at 5.1GHz continually and it bogs it down!

The resulting files are great. I only experimented a bit, but its literal movie quality output.

My camera card in the Z8 gives me 2 something minutes at highest data rates.
And it is this PRO 2tb card. Which really is a NVMe drive on the inside. It doesent slow, but literally burns your fingers.
https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-2tb/p/0D9-001Y-000B8
Its rated for 1.8GB per second write speed... in a card! And it really can right to the end.

So 8K has its uses, even by you. Once you try the 8k raw and see what editing that it allows with the pro version of Davinci Resolve or similar you would be amazed. Remember the aim is a perfect 4k output. It allows you to throw away 3/4 of the pixels. So huge gains in post zooming, stability, and exposure with raw. etc.

Just like your photos. You shoot 45mpixels. But you dont alsways use all the pixels in the output. But with movies that offers even more opportunities with stability etc. And high speed shooting. So I can do crazy frame rates if not rw, or if 4k raw.

Yes. Where does it all end?

[Burgerman]

New firmware for the Z8 now allows me to do some weird in camera automated stuff too.

For e,g I can do a single photo, that comprises of all 3 of the fllowing.
Pixel shift shooting, so increased resolution, to 4x greater than 45mpixels. Now on a tripod, I can take literal 180mp images. Simultaniously I can set it to do focus stacking. So you can get everything in 100% focus front to back of the image, or just the bits that you want. And also simultaniously I can do exposure variations so bracketing that allows for bringing out shadow or highlight details in post.

That absolutely crazy. It takes up to a few hundred frames when doing this... But the Z8 has no mechanical shutter so its all vibration free and fast as hell.

The images this allows are going to be increadibly detailed.
It can alredy do all that stuff. But now I will be able to combine all 3 things in a single picture.
I also have the 85mm f1.2 lens, and the 135 f1.8 lensss too. The exact opposite! Super low depth of feild...

But its all data and and speed driven. Like the remarkable AI built into the focus system. Its 500% better (probably more) than the DSLR was at their best. It literally knows my mind, and focusses to the 1mm accuracy on say an eye pupil. At speed! While running! At 30 frames per secnd! Making these crazy f1.2 or 1.8 lenses actually useful.
It makes photography of things you never though possible easy!

[Williamclark77]

I'd like to see some of the stuff you've done with it. I still don't really see a need for 8k and most of the tricks FOR MY USAGE. Computing power and storage just aren't ready for 8k resolution. At least not mainstream stuff.

My rig struggles with REALTIME playback of most 4k footage in the editing software with many of the filters if the timeline is in full resolution. Basic color corrections don't or cutting the playback resolution down . I use Adobe Premiere. It will stutter and skip. It will get hot enough to throttle back during an encode output. Not enough to matter. Adding a few minutes to the encode time because it throttled from 5.0 to 4.6Ghz doesn't affect me since I usually go do something else while it churns away. 8k would choke it!

I've tried Davinci and wasn't a huge fan. Probably because I learned in Premiere and just used to its interface. I need to try it again. I just don't do much video anymore.

Most of the video I've done over the last two years has been drone. DJI Maverick 3 Pro. It's crazy how good those tiny cameras are.

I really need to shoot more though. New baby just born in May. I have a subject to document!

Older video I did using the outdated T2i and Canon Mpe65 lens. That camera didn't even have video autofocus and anything over 400 iso was useless. I don't know what or if Nikon has an equivalent to the Mpe lens. It's extremely difficult to use. No auto anything. It doesn't even have a moveable focus. Tiny aperture required. The results are worth it though. This is only around 1.5x magnification. It'll go up to 5x. At that magnification, a grain of rice will completely cover an APSC sized sensor.

https://www.willsjunk.com/Other/Pics-Th ... /i-MkLh7Wk

You could do a lot of interesting things with a similar lens and the capabilities of a ZX8 or equivalent.

[Burgerman]

You really do need a good PC.Thats whay I buit the crazy water cooled over clocked monster. It doesent throttle. Doesent get warm. Runs 32 threads at 5.2ghz and much of the crunching is by a water cooled clocked Nvidia 3080Ti

I use a 4K OLED TV for my monitor, and a lot of 4TB ultra fast NVMe SSDs. 128GB fast ram, 32 threads, and a very overclocked Nvidia 3080Ti that outperforms most 3090s.

Now that manages with 8K raw video pretty well.

But the OTT cooling with 2 uge radiators and all the powerful pumps and VRM/CPU coolers ec is essential. Or it would throttle. The CPU alone pulls 300 watts. The GPU around 570 watts. All using liquid metal and expensive coolers... And a 2 inch thick 480 mm tall front radiator.

Question.
What version of Adobe Premier are you using?
I have 25.2.4 here if you want a copy. Maybe a newer one too.
EDIT yep, newer!
And latest photoshop too...

[Burgerman]

Latest photoshop, pre activated...
photoshop
https://www.mediafire.com/file/7y844gft ... 9.zip/file

Latest premier, search at top bar "premier" also pre activated and working fne.
premier
https://filecr.com/windows/adobe-premie ... 3879600000

resolve studio
Agan this is the latest pro version of blackmagic resolve studio
Remove all traces of older instalation, first and its slow to install. It keeps saying failed. Keep pressing try again. Gets there in the end!
https://www.mediafire.com/file/k29h514r ... 9.zip/file

Mediafile is fast, I downloaded these 5 and 6G files at 40 to 50MB per second.

[Williamclark77]

I'm using an older Premiere 2020 v14. 0.3. I'll try these newer ones. Thanks.

I've seen your computer build thread. I haven't done water cooling in years. The last computer I built for myself before this one in probably 2014 was. I had to build a new one because I started getting blue screens of death. The water pump on the CPU itself had a hairline crack, allowing water to the CPU pins and video card pins. Super tiny leak. Maybe two teaspoons over months, but that was enough for corrosion to hurt it

I don't have the finger function for doing the plumbing and such. I'd love to. I have to focus on reliability and just flat out being able to do it instead of bleeding edge. I wish I could though. I know it quite well and could design and build my own water blocks.

If I was doing constant video editing I would push this current setup harder. Really no need 99% of the time. Few programs I use daily, including CAD programs with machining modules, utilize more than a few of the 12 cores I have now, much less all 24 threads. When I am editing video I can reboot and load a heavier OC'd profile in under two minutes. Modern motherboards are basically an OS themselves.

If you haven't gotten to see properly rendered 4k content on a 120" screen, I highly suggest it. It's hypnotic. I've spent a lot of time calibrating my sound system as well. 7.4.2 Dolby Atmos/DTSX arrangement. Four subs. Two 21" in the front. Two 18" in the rear. All four pushed by a 4650 Watt PER CHANNEL capable amp. That's at a 4ohm load. It's on a dedicated 240v 40amp circuit.

It's not easy to get content with properly mixed soundtrack though. Even on Blu-rays with an Atmos or DTSX track it's rarely really mixed well to get great three dimensional sound, especially through an entire movie and not just a few scenes. The receiver can only do so much thinking that the director should have done.

I rarely get time to watch TV, but when we do, we make the most of it.

[Burgerman]

I have a TV in my lounge. Another OLED 4k 65 inch.

I have not watched any actual TV in 12 years or more. It all just ads, dumbed down garbage for the average "normal" that gets exited over trivia. Worse its now all socialist and woke anti british, anti capitalist, anto free speech, anti america, anti jew, and pro globalist propaganda wall to wall. Ever program has to have more black, more muslim, more woke lefty propaganda pretending to be content than the last one. Only the left can watch it. Or londoners, Same thing.

I saw native 8K 60fps stabilised direct from my camera. In a TV shop... That is rather impressive. But unless you are 4 inches from the screen its poinless. But in your snake, and RC car movies that would have allowed complete camera stability, and other mods to improve the movies by shooting wider by a lot, then allowing say a half of the screen to be sacrificed for PC based stability, centreing the subject, and 4x zooming, and ended up with no quality loss and better 4k output. 4K is 1/4 of the 8k screen.

Your content is way better than mine though! I just mess about wirh movies. I like the tech stuff. And for photos then its a device for great PC input like a scanner. I am not arty!

[Williamclark77]

I haven't watched TV in years either for the same reasons. We've tried to watch a few shows over the last few years to watch while eating supper or whatever. About everything tries to force an agenda down your throat. I gave up. Every platform does it.

I've never gotten to see any 8k content. I doubt I get to any time soon. My computer monitor is just 1920x1080. Probably 15 years old. NEC brand from back when an IPS panel was higher end. Bought specifically for photo editing. I haven't had to calibrate it in years. Holds its color very well. I'll upgrade it before any other computer stuff.

One thing I could probably benefit 8k recording from is the depth of field. It's hard to get any dof using a SLR lens over 35mm long without bright light. The cropping to 4k would get more dof in the final output.

I don't plan on building another PC in the next few years. I figured the ARM processors would have become more mainstream by now. When I was researching to build this one five years ago many were predicting the ARM processors would match or beat anything from AMD or Intel at 30% of the wattage soon. Last I really looked when I built a mid tier computer for a friend last summer they weren't popular at all on Winders or Linux.

The last two computers I built for people and my computer at the office I built are Linux. So much simpler, faster, and less headaches on older or low end hardware as long as you're only doing office based stuff - email, web browsing, spreadsheets, PDF files, printing, scanning, pictures, and similar. I still run a stripped down debloated version of Winders 10 similar to yours at home.

[Burgerman]

One thing I could probably benefit 8k recording from is the depth of field. It's hard to get any dof using a SLR lens over 35mm long without bright light. The cropping to 4k would get more dof in the final output.

Actually it doesent.
If you do the calculations it nets you the exact same depth of field. Only more lightsmaller aperture cant give that. So a less noisy camera. But that has improved much over the years.
Depth of field is basically sensor size (physical) + aperture + output size. Things like resolutions and wide lense with cropping to 4k etc do not change depth of field.


And if thats not enough at least in photos the latest AI (so called) noise deduction and detail enhancers in both Adobe RAW and in DXO is pretty game changing. And again murders the computer! Makes all the fans spin and the pump ramp up, for at least 30 secs on a single photo. Albeit that can be 180mp on mine. Which is rediculous.


After spending a few £££ on 2 remarkably sharp wide open latest Z nikon lenses, an 85mm f1.2 and 135mm F1.8, I lean the other way! Those two lenses make a chair leg look like art! I leave one or the other on my camera.
The difference between the super razor sharp wide open in focus areas, compared to the really soft blur of background gives everything a 3d type of quality and really isolates the subject matter. Lenses this good simply didnt exist on earth 5 years ago. Coupled with modern processing software it is remarkable!
No good for macro stuff though...

But my new Z8 firmware is.
It allows 180mp photos, via pixel shifting the 45mp sensor at 30fps... So lazer sharp from forground to background with crazy resolution.
Simultaniously allowing up to 7 stops of exposure so you end up with a huge stack of photos, all combined into 1. So for landscapes, macro, night stuff, its quite amazing. And that needs a supercomputer too.