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Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

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Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#11

Post by iKlsR »

guptaneil wrote: post #8

I don’t have any unique insights into TikTok nor do I use the app, but TikTok has several product advantages over those other platforms: 1. They only have a queue of videos. That means there is one video playing and they know exactly what the next N videos are going to be, so they can start buffering them early 2. The video plays are high intent. If you launch TikTok, you are 100% going to watch videos. This is not t…

This list is focused on videos but the search is what is beyond good, it's one of the best searches I've ever seen for content. You can literally use it as you would google. I'm assuming they transcribe their videos as well as run some object detection or image to text models that generate some metadata as to what is happening and or who or what is in a clip.

Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#13

Post by Kukumber »

guptaneil wrote: post #8

I don’t have any unique insights into TikTok nor do I use the app, but TikTok has several product advantages over those other platforms: 1. They only have a queue of videos. That means there is one video playing and they know exactly what the next N videos are going to be, so they can start buffering them early 2. The video plays are high intent. If you launch TikTok, you are 100% going to watch videos. This is not t…

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#14

Post by hot_gril »

People have answered about the inherent easiness of preloading videos. It's still a challenge. Users skip videos very frequently, right? And when you first open the app, it already has a video playing. Twitter's video player seems worse than it should be. Netflix has a harder job due to the quality, so I give them a pass.

IIRC TikTok for a long time wasn't even using TLS encryption for client-server traffic, which is rare. Whoever is cutting corners like that is very focused on just making the thing work and fixing the issues later, which has its pros and cons. In a US big tech company, experienced devs would throw a fit over things like this and slow down the project to catch those details. I work with people like that. I'm guessing (as not a TikTok employee) that TikTok is more top-down, plus video is its main focus. Maybe they're preloading aggressively, user's battery and data plan be darned.

Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#15

Post by hot_gril »

prvc wrote: post #12

How big is a typical TikTok video compared to a Vimeo one? And if "buffering" is your problem, perhaps it's caused by something other than the company serving the video.

Big in what way, resolution or length? I'm sure Vimeo can serve lower-resolution, and the length of the video doesn't affect how quickly it can buffer.

Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#16

Post by hot_gril »

dbbk wrote: post #5

"It rarely buffers or fails to load" this is because the next 6 or so videos are known and buffered ahead of time. This isn't really the case on other sites.

You load a feed on Twitter. It knows what videos are coming up. You open a page on Reddit, it knows what videos are in the first few pages.

Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#17

Post by zeehio »

Last week I was travelling on a different country. I was mostly without WiFi and I bought a prepaid SIM card with some GB. TikTok ate 2GB of "background data" in two days, even if I did not open the app.

So it's not hard for me to guess how they do it...

(Yes, background data is now disabled for TikTok on my phone... I learned my lesson)

Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?

#19

Post by [deleted] »

hot_gril wrote: post #14

People have answered about the inherent easiness of preloading videos. It's still a challenge. Users skip videos very frequently, right? And when you first open the app, it already has a video playing. Twitter's video player seems worse than it should be. Netflix has a harder job due to the quality, so I give them a pass. IIRC TikTok for a long time wasn't even using TLS encryption for client-server traffic, which is…

[deleted]
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