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492 points storf45 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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dylan604 ◴[] 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 ◴[] 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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ironhaven ◴[] 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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dylan604 ◴[] 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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1. throw0101b ◴[] 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.