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Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

bbc.com

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Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#221

Post by pilsetnieks »

Qwertystop wrote: post #139
bryanlarsen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix's costs are higher for UHD streaming: storage, bandwidth, production, et cetera. What's scummy about it?

Storage and production costs for something available in UHD are the same regardless of whether someone streams a downscaled version. Storing multiple resolutions (assuming they do that rather than downscaling live from the stored highest-res or making the client do it) is where additional costs for more versions would show up.

You need to store downscaled versions anyway for low-bandwidth clients. However, with UHD you also have to store the UHD version, in addition to all the small ones. You also need more storage not just in your own DCs but also in those cache boxes you have at every major ISP; then there's the peering costs for transmitting those UHD videos, etc.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#222

Post by madrox »

chrisseaton wrote: post #211
lordnacho wrote: post #168

One thing I haven't heard is how DisneyLife fits into this. I use it at the moment for my kids and it has all the stuff you expect from Disney, basically the animated movies like a Frozen and Moana. The service is terrible, often breaks, and has an undocumented but necessary auth code step, with the added gotcha that the ui covers over the code sometimes. The ui is also terrible, who would make it so the next episode…

Why does it log out so much?!?

Long story short, Disney has a policy about such things. You'll find yourself logged out of most Disney services on the same cadence. I believe this was never an issue before us because most Disney services you log in for aren't daily use, such as buying park tickets. That may have changed for Disney+. We all knew it was a huge pain point in the UX.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#223

Post by pilsetnieks »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #67
sterileopinions wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well trodden problem" does not make it any easier. Yes it does.

I have to agree with sterileopinions here. The fact that it's been done multiple times before means you know a lot about how hard it will be, the necessary resources, and can learn from past mistakes. That doesn't make it easy. But it definitely makes it easier. To say otherwise is to argue that experience isn't useful.

> The fact that it's been done multiple times before means you know a lot about how hard it will be, the necessary resources, and can learn from past mistakes.

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#224

Post by azinman2 »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #210
jamroom wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hulu on my Apple TV is excellent - I find the interface to be much less "noisy" than Netflix and I like the large back catalog on a lot shows. Honestly I subscribed for one show (forget what it was now) but found I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

I'm not talking about the interface. I mean it literally won't load or crashes regularly. I have fiber internet and no issues with Netflix or any other streaming service. I'm glad it works for you, but it's pretty awful for me.

Strange. I also have no issues with it, although I don't like the UI.

Does Hulu work on your normal computers (e.g. not a network-related issue)? Everything updated?

I don't know if this works or not, but you might want to try and plug it into a Mac and launch Console to get a sense of what's going on....

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#225

Post by JaRail »

sassifrass wrote: post #55
cookiecaper wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Last night I was telling my wife that it'll be real interesting to see how well the launch goes and that I'd expect them to have continuous issues for the first 3-6 months (which may be Netflix's only prayer). Video is hard to get right, with quirks across many combinations of platform/device/OS/browser version/video card/playback resolution/format features, and it consumes around 90% of total internet traffi…

It’s true that getting video “right” can be extremely challenging, but it’s worth noting that Disney has quite significant previous experience here, including at massive scale. Disney+ operates on top of an expanded MLBAM (BAMTech Media [1]) platform, which has been powering all of ESPNs OTT, Playstatiom Vue, and ran HBO’s OTT offering for a while [2] (Game of Thrones). Disney also opted only to launch in the US, Can…

It's not the worst idea. If they had performance problems in multiple regions, their engineers would be chasing peak hours around the clock. If they focus on NA first, they can at least get some sleep at the end of the day.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#226

Post by JaRail »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #149
lotsofpulp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix’s multiple screens implementation makes it everyone has access to everyone else’s profile. They should’ve let people link individual Netflix accounts together, but I can see how that can cause fewer possible subscribers if people start sharing.

>. They should’ve let people link individual Netflix accounts together Spotify does that and it's a complete deal breaker. I want to log in to all my home devices _once_, with a single account. Not continuously log out and log in and try to type complex passwords with a remote control. I mean, I can't even play different songs on different Google Homes or different TVs with Spotify, unless I sign in with different ac…

There are lots of systems that let multiple users sign in and switch without re-entering credentials. Game consoles are a good example.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#228

Post by mike_hock »

cwkoss wrote: post #227

Disney is responsible for vast lobbying efforts to criminalize access to culture around intellectual property. Make the moral choice and pirate their content instead of giving them your money to fund further overreach.

> Make the moral choice and pirate their content instead of giving them your money to fund further overreach.

... if you absolutely must have their crap in the first place.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#229

Post by markdown »

cwkoss wrote: post #227

Disney is responsible for vast lobbying efforts to criminalize access to culture around intellectual property. Make the moral choice and pirate their content instead of giving them your money to fund further overreach.

> Make the moral choice and pirate their content instead of giving them your money to fund further overreach.

I was going to pirate The Mandalorian because "Sorry, Disney+ is not available in your country", but I like your reason better. Justification upgraded.

Re: Disney+ hit by technical glitches on launch day

#230

Post by markdown »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #3

I don't think anyone on hackernews would be surprised by this. The scale they have to operate at is absolutely insane. To scale flawlessly on day 1 is a big ask of any development team.

Meh, this was easily prevented simply by not promoting it so much. They should have done a staggered rollout country by country starting with the smaller countries and adding on a country or two every day.
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