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Netflix buffering issues: Boxing fans complain about Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson

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492 points storf45 | 5 comments | 16 Nov 24 03:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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freditup ◴[16 Nov 24 03:57 UTC] No.42154036[source]▶
I wonder if there will be any long term reputational repercussions for Netflix because of this. Amongst SWEs, Netflix is known for hiring the best people and their streaming service normally seems very solid. Other streaming services have definitely caught up a bit and are much more reliable then in the early days, but my impression still has always been that Netflix is a step above the rest technically.

This sure doesn't help with that impression, and it hasn't just been a momentary glitch but hours of instability. And the Netflix status page saying "Netflix is up! We are not currently experiencing an interruption to our streaming service." doesn't help either...

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1. noncoml ◴[16 Nov 24 04:29 UTC] No.42154237[source]▶
> their streaming service normally seems very solid

Not trying to downplay their complexity, but last I heard Netflix is splitting the shows in small data chunks and just serves them as static files.

Live streaming is a different beast

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2. treflop ◴[16 Nov 24 04:34 UTC] No.42154275[source]▶
Static files have been pretty much the standard streaming protocols for both VOD and live for the last 15 years ago. Before, it was Adobe Flash (RTMP).

With the way that they are designed, you can even use a regular CDN.

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3. astrange ◴[16 Nov 24 05:17 UTC] No.42154502[source]▶
That's how streaming (usually) works. The main URL is a playlist of transport stream files and it just downloads them in the background as you go.
4. adrr ◴[16 Nov 24 06:32 UTC] No.42154829[source]▶
You can push these files to all the edges before you release the content which will protect your origin. Livestream all your edge servers are grabbing content from the origin unless you have another tier of regional servers to alleviate load.
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5. treflop ◴[16 Nov 24 08:03 UTC] No.42155164{3}[source]▶
Sure but that’s why your edge servers do request collapsing. And there are full blown CDN companies that will write an enterprise contract with you that can do this stuff with ease. Akamai is like 25 years old now.

Scale has increased but the techniques were figured out 20 years ago. There is not much left to invent in this space at the current moment so screwing up more than once is a bit unacceptable.