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

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492 points storf45 | 6 comments | 16 Nov 24 03:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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Dem_Boys ◴[16 Nov 24 05:51 UTC] No.42154638[source]▶
What do you think were the dynamics of the engineering team working on this?

I'd think this isn't too crazy to stress test. If you have 300 million users signed up then you're stress test should be 300 million simultaneous streams in HD for 4 hours. I just don't see how Netflix screws this up.

Maybe it was a management incompetence thing? Manager says something like "We only need to support 20 million simultaneous streams" and engineers implement to that spec even if the 20 million number is wildly incorrect.

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margaretdouglas ◴[16 Nov 24 06:30 UTC] No.42154822[source]▶
Has there ever been a 300m concurrent live stream? I thought Disney+ had the record at something like 60m.
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1. nonameiguess ◴[16 Nov 24 11:41 UTC] No.42155899[source]▶
There's no way 300 million people watched this, especially if that number is representing every Netflix subscriber. The largest claimed live broadcast across all platforms is last year's Super Bowl with 202 million unique viewers for at least part of it, but that includes CBS, Nickelodeon, and Univision, not just streaming audiences. Its average viewers for the whole game was 123 million, which is second all-time to the Apollo 11 moon landing.
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2. vitus ◴[16 Nov 24 12:30 UTC] No.42156077[source]▶
FIFA claimed the 2022 World Cup final reached 1.5 billion people worldwide, but again that seems like it was mostly via broadcast television and cable.

As far as single stream, Disney's Hotstar claimed 59 million for last year's Cricket World Cup, and as far as the YT platform, the Chandrayaan-3 lunar landing hit 8 million.

100 million is a lot of streams, let alone 300. But also note that not every stream reaches a single individual.

And, as far as the 59 million concurrent streams in India, the bitrate was probably very low (I'd wager no more than 720p on average, possibly even 480p in many cases). It's again a very different problem across the board due to regional differences (such as spread of devices, quality of network, even behavioral differences).

replies(1): >>42163821 #
3. ta1243 ◴[17 Nov 24 12:22 UTC] No.42163821[source]▶
480p30 could be as high as 280mbit or as low as 280kbit. Same with other resolutions.
replies(1): >>42164195 #
4. vitus ◴[17 Nov 24 13:55 UTC] No.42164195{3}[source]▶
I mean, yes, but nobody streams RAW video in practice, and I can't imagine any users or service providers who'd be happy with that level of inefficiency. In general, it's safe to assume some reasonable compression (which, yes, is likely lossy).
replies(1): >>42164242 #
5. ta1243 ◴[17 Nov 24 14:08 UTC] No.42164242{4}[source]▶
It's quite possible for one broadcasters 480p30 to be a higher bitrate than another broadcasters 720p60

I remember watching the last season of Game of Thrones on one streaming provider, which topped out about 3.5mbit but claimed it was "1080p".

Give me a 15mbit 640x480 over 3.5mbit of 1920x1080 for that type of material any day.

replies(1): >>42165234 #
6. vitus ◴[17 Nov 24 16:56 UTC] No.42165234{5}[source]▶
> It's quite possible for one broadcasters 480p30 to be a higher bitrate than another broadcasters 720p60

Yes, I don't think anyone's disputing that.

> I remember watching the last season of Game of Thrones on one streaming provider, which topped out about 3.5mbit but claimed it was "1080p".

Why the scare quotes? That's a perfectly reasonable bitrate using modern compression like H.265, especially for a TV show that's filmed at 24 fps.