--- title: I watched my video in SD quality but used more video minutes than actually watched. What's the reason? description: Using more video minutes than actually watched has to do with buffering. In order to be able to play back a video it needs to be preloaded - at least to some degree. For all stationary and mobile devi --- ![company logo](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/hs-fs/hubfs/test-header.png?height=120&name=test-header.png) [Support Center](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/) - [Open a Support Ticket](https://mediacloud.dev.lightcast.com/support-center/open-ticket) - - [Go to Customer Portal](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/tickets) Bandwidth Usage (Video Minutes) - [Getting Started](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/getting-started) - [Video Guides](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides) - [Subtitles](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#subtitles) - [Audio Archive](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#audio-archive) - [Sub Channels](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#sub-channels) - [Watermarks](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#watermarks) - [Video Minutes](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#video-minutes) - [Account Settings](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#account-settings) - [Workflow Presets](https://help.dev.lightcast.com/video-guides#workflow-presets) - 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What's the reason? Using more video minutes than actually watched has to do with buffering. In order to be able to play back a video it needs to be preloaded - at least to some degree. For all stationary and mobile devices which can handle it, Lightcast streams with the safest and most bandwidth-efficient technology: HLS.  HLS requires the preloading of only 10-30% - depending on, and adaptive to, the viewer's available bandwidth. It buffers more only if needed or a certain bitrate has been selected by the viewer manually (thus overriding the auto-bitrate adaptive mode). 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