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

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492 points storf45 | 1 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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ocdtrekkie ◴[16 Nov 24 04:03 UTC] No.42154059[source]▶
So the issue is that Netflix gets its performance from colocating caches of movies in ISP datacenters, and a live broadcast doesn't work with that. It's not just about the sheer numbers of viewers, it's that a live model totally undermines their entire infrastructure advantage.

See: https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

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ethbr1 ◴[16 Nov 24 04:46 UTC] No.42154343[source]▶
I'm curious if the root cause is more variable than usual latency.

Sample size 1, but...

I saw a ton of buffering and failure on an embedded Netflix app on a TV, including some infinite freezes.

Moved over to laptop, zero buffering.

I assume the web app runs with a lot bigger buffer than whatever is squeezed into the underpowered TV.

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YZF ◴[16 Nov 24 07:38 UTC] No.42155094[source]▶
Likely these devices use different media formats and/or quality levels. And yes, it's possible one device buffers more than the other. Infinite freezes sounds like some routing issues or bugs.
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ethbr1 ◴[16 Nov 24 13:01 UTC] No.42156196{3}[source]▶
When I was watching the behavior on the tv, was wondering if buffering sends some separate, non-business-as-usual requests, and that part of Netflix's delivery architecture was being overloaded.

E.g. "give me this previous chunk" vs "send me the current stream"

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1. YZF ◴[16 Nov 24 21:40 UTC] No.42159593{4}[source]▶
Buffering typically just consumes the same live stream until there's enough in the buffer. No difference other than the request rate being potentially higher. At least I can confidently say that for the standard players/video platforms. NetFlix could be doing something different. I'm not sure if they have their own protocols. But I'd be very surprised if the buffering used a completely different mechanism.