Live data from Hacker News

Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

highscalability.com

61–70 of 139 posts

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#61
post #31

I'd be interested in finding out what happens when I press the thumbs down/up icon on Netflix, because the match ratings that are displayed to me seem to have nothing to do with either my ratings or with my watching history.

It records your like/dislike, but it doesn’t distribute the change to its database immediately. Same for YouTube or so many other services.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#62
post #12
post #6

Many of the things Netflix does here google does too and has been doing for a long time like GGC (Google Global Cache) for free at ISP NOC or datacenters - their GGC nodes are many orders of magnitude time is distribution. 90% of the Google traffic through these devices are youtube videos. They mention it in the article like Netflix pioneered this idea with open-connect. If anything it's harder to get OC devices from…

That sounds a bit like a violation of net neutrality avant la lettre.

It's good for everyone -- if you are an ISP with 35%+ of your traffic coming from Netflix, you might be begging for these boxes in your network.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#63
post #17

I know what it does when I don't press play: fills my memory with a boatload of bloated interface that has the shittiest navigation of any media player I've ever used. And I still can't just view a list of all series/movies by date.

Which media player has an interface you like? I'm usually an outcast for it, but I actually like the iTunes Movies interface myself.

Popcorn has a better interface than Netflix IMO

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#64

I feel bit sorry for Netflix, for the lengths they have gone to get their high performance/reliable architecture but the clients are still at the mercy of the OS, browsers, CPU (decoding codecs) of-course assuming high speed Internet. From their website - https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 Resolution: Google Chrome Up to 720p on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Up to 1080p on Chrome OS. Internet Explorer up to 1080p. Mic…

Is it browser limitations, or just DRM limitations? Youtube seems to do 4K just fine.

I think it has to do with HEVC h.265 codec & HW acceleration support available to the browser in the respective platforms.

https://caniuse.com/#feat=hevc

Not sure why Chrome doesn't support HW for it though albeit Chrome OS. My Celeron N3060 Chromebook can decode it.

I read Netflix has started using VP9 for streaming, newer CPU's have VP9 decoders in them.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#65
post #14

> Netflix has more than 110 million subscribers. > Netflix operates in more than 200 countries The five largest public torrent trackers track 30-50 million peers at any given time, serving over 10 million torrents. Torrents are estimated to have over a quarter of a billion active users. Torrents can be streamed, and in the end you have a DRM free copy of the file that you can rewatch at your pleasure, on any device(a…

Agreed and disagreed. Netflix or YouTube prowess is indeed only because they have to push their agenda. Torrents solved that problem already. But torrents indeed did not solve the problem of paying to creators. I am looking forward to new decentralized solutions using Blockchain.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#66

I feel bit sorry for Netflix, for the lengths they have gone to get their high performance/reliable architecture but the clients are still at the mercy of the OS, browsers, CPU (decoding codecs) of-course assuming high speed Internet. From their website - https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 Resolution: Google Chrome Up to 720p on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Up to 1080p on Chrome OS. Internet Explorer up to 1080p. Mic…

Is it browser limitations, or just DRM limitations? Youtube seems to do 4K just fine.

Yeah, IE and Edge are the only browsers with PlayReady DRM. Rest of them (besides Apple devices) are using Widevine DRM.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#67
post #17

I know what it does when I don't press play: fills my memory with a boatload of bloated interface that has the shittiest navigation of any media player I've ever used. And I still can't just view a list of all series/movies by date.

Which media player has an interface you like? I'm usually an outcast for it, but I actually like the iTunes Movies interface myself.

I like mpv the most. It's simple, but still has everything you need (and you can do rest with the keyboard shortcuts), and it's pretty. In my opinion, however, the problem with Netflix player, is not its design. It's that it's pretty laggy, it is not nearly as smooth as for example YouTube player.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#68
post #31

I'd be interested in finding out what happens when I press the thumbs down/up icon on Netflix, because the match ratings that are displayed to me seem to have nothing to do with either my ratings or with my watching history.

It records your like/dislike, but it doesn’t distribute the change to its database immediately. Same for YouTube or so many other services.

The thing is I don't feel like any of the match ratings in the last year and a half since I've been using Netflix have had anything to do with my interests, the ratings I've given out or with my viewing history.

Unless propagation to their database takes two years, I'm really interested in how they actually arrive at match ratings.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#69

I feel bit sorry for Netflix, for the lengths they have gone to get their high performance/reliable architecture but the clients are still at the mercy of the OS, browsers, CPU (decoding codecs) of-course assuming high speed Internet. From their website - https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 Resolution: Google Chrome Up to 720p on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Up to 1080p on Chrome OS. Internet Explorer up to 1080p. Mic…

Is it browser limitations, or just DRM limitations? Youtube seems to do 4K just fine.

It's DRM. That's why you see 4k available in edge (where they use special CPU instructions for secure enclave - that's why requirement of newer i7 CPU) while 720p only in Chrome.

Re: Netflix: What Happens When You Press Play?

#70
I guess the discrepancy between what I expected the article to be, based on the title, and what it actually was is a good reflection on the fact that development of these types of services is no longer built from first principles, low level to high level, but is rather constructed like a building from a set of abstracted lego pieces.
Post reply on HN