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

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.

> People just do not appreciate how many gotchas can pop up doing anything live.

Sure thing, but also, how much resources do you think Netflix threw on this event? If organizations like FOSSDEM and CCC can do live events (although with way smaller viewership) across the globe without major hiccups on (relatively) tiny budgets and smaller infrastructure overall, how could Netflix not?

The CCC video crew has its fair share of geeks from broadcasting corporations and studio houses. Their combined institutional knowledge about live events and streaming distribution is probably in the same ballpark as that of giant global TV networks.

They also have the benefit of having practiced their craft at the CCC events for more than a decade. Twice a year. (Their summer event is smaller but still fairly well known. Links to talks show up on HN every now and then.)

Funky anecdote: the video crew at Assembly have more broadcasting and live AV gear for their annual event than most medium-sized studios.