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

(www.sportingnews.com)
492 points storf45 | 8 comments | 16 Nov 24 03:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.857s | source | bottom
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dylan604 ◴[16 Nov 24 16:06 UTC] No.42157048[source]▶
People just do not appreciate how many gotchas can pop up doing anything live. Sure, Netflix might have a great CDN that works great for their canned content and I could see how they might have assumed that's the hardest part.

Live has changed over the years from large satellite dishes beaming to a geosat and back down to the broadcast center($$$$$), to microwave to a more local broadcast center($$$$), to running dedicated fiber long haul back to a broadcast center($$$), to having a kit with multiple cell providers pushing a signal back to a broadcast center($$), to having a direct internet connection to a server accepting a live http stream($).

I'd be curious to know what their live plan was and what their redundant plan was.

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bena ◴[16 Nov 24 16:16 UTC] No.42157117[source]▶
It is weird because this was a solved problem.

Every major network can broadcast the Super Bowl without issue.

And while Netflix claims it streamed to 280 million, that’s if every single subscriber viewed it.

Actual numbers put it in the 120 million range. Which is in line with the Super Bowl.

Maybe Netflix needs to ask CBS or ABC how to broadcast

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1. ironhaven ◴[16 Nov 24 16:22 UTC] No.42157154[source]▶
Do you live stream the superbowl? Me and everyone I know watch it over antenna broadcast tv. I think it is easier to have millions of tvs catch airwaves vs millions of point to point https video streams.
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2. dylan604 ◴[16 Nov 24 16:59 UTC] No.42157416[source]▶
If you watch it over cable, you're live streaming it. Let's face it, that's where the vast majority of viewers see it. Few people view OTA even if the quality is better.

Live sports do not broadcast the event directly to a streamer. They push it to their broadcast centers. It then gets distributed from there to whatever avenues it needs to go. Trying to push a live IP stream directly from the remote live venue rarely works as expected. That's precisely why the broadcasters/networks do not do it that way

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3. throw0101b ◴[16 Nov 24 17:16 UTC] No.42157517[source]▶
> If you watch it over cable, you're live streaming it.

Which is probably done over the cableco's private network (not the public Internet) with a special VLAN used for television (as opposed to general web access). They're probably using multicast.

4. toast0 ◴[16 Nov 24 20:29 UTC] No.42159037[source]▶
Is cable video over IP now? Last time I looked (which was forever ago), even switched video was atsc with a bit of messaging for the cable box to ask what channel to tune to, and to keep the stream alive. TV over teleco systems seems to be highly multicast, so kind of similar, headend only has to send the content once, in a single bitrate.

Not really the same as an IP service live stream where the distribution point is sending out one copy per viewer and participating in bitrate adaptation.

AFAIK, Netflix hasn't publicly described how they do live events, but I think it's safe to assume they have some amount of onsite production that outputs the master feed for archiving and live transcoding for the different bitrate targets (that part may be onsite, or at a broadcast center or something cloudy), and then goes to a distribution network. I'd imagine their broadcast center/or onsite processing feeds to a limited number of highly connected nodes that feed to most of their CDN nodes; maybe more layers. And then clients stream from the CDN nodes. Nobody would stream an event like this direct from the event; you've got to have something to increase capacity.

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5. tredre3 ◴[16 Nov 24 21:01 UTC] No.42159294{3}[source]▶
> Is cable video over IP now?

Over the US and Canada it mostly is, though how advanced the transition is is very regional.

The plan is to drop both analog signal and digital (QAM) to reclaim the frequencies and use them for DOCSIS internet.

Newer set top boxes from Comcast (xfinity) runs over the internet connection (in a tagged VLAN on a private network, and they communicate over a hidden wifi).

6. akira2501 ◴[16 Nov 24 22:30 UTC] No.42159964[source]▶
> If you watch it over cable, you're live streaming it.

Those are multicast feeds.

> Trying to push a live IP stream directly from the remote live venue rarely works as expected.

In my experience it almost always works as expected. We have highly specialized codecs and equipment for this. The stream is actively managed with feedback from the receiver so parameters can be adjusted for best performance on the fly. Redundant connections and multiple backhauls are all handled automatically.

> That's precisely why the broadcasters/networks do not do it that way

We use fixed point links and satellite where possible because we own the whole pipe. It's less coordination and effort to setup and you can hit venues and remotes where fixed infrastructure is difficult or impossible to install.

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7. devnullbrain ◴[17 Nov 24 01:23 UTC] No.42161172[source]▶
>I think it is easier to have millions of tvs catch airwaves vs millions of point to point https video streams.

Exactly! It was a solved problem.

The Superbowl isn't even the biggest. World Cup finals bring in billions of viewers.

8. ta1243 ◴[17 Nov 24 13:56 UTC] No.42164199{3}[source]▶
I chose to interpret it charitably and assume OP was saying it's not pushed from venue direct to viewer.

> We use fixed point links and satellite where possible because we own the whole pipe.

Over long distance I get better reliability out of a decent internet provision than in many fixed point to point links, and certainly when comparing at a price point. The downside of the internet is you can't guarantee path separation - even if today you're routing via two different paths, tomorrow the routes might change and you end up with everything going via the same data centre or even same cable.