Earlier quoted context omitted.
For someone who doesn’t know much about this stuff, what does that mean?
It means it has no server.
Yes, no server. It runs somewhere up in the clouds!
Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
101–110 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#102Quite simply, TikTok is using (and paying for) A LOT of traffic. That allows them to cache the first X seconds of the next Y videos. If you choose the values correctly, it takes you longer to swipe up Y times than it takes them to cache the Y+1 th video, on average.
I'm sure if Reddit had government-level funding to burn, they'd also find some ways to improve their video player.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#103A product being viral doesn't mean it's good, it's just sufficient for the usage.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#104I think most people here are vastly, vastly overestimating the size of the videos with all this talk about buffering in the comments.
The average video on tiktok, at least for the webapp version, appears to be around 1 megabit (0.125 megabytes) per second when the h264 option is used, and only half of that rate when using ByteDance's 'own' (essentially hevc) format.
I would reckon nearly all internet users, even many mobile ones, have more than enough bandwidth (and low enough latency and loss) to stream many of these tiktok videos in real time simultaneously, let alone a single one at a time.
Tiktok's backend infrastructure may be impressive, but the same could be said for the other companies you listed such as Google.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#105It's simple, they don't use their smartest developers to work on intrusive ways to bother the user with ads. They work on serving content to users instead.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't order by date or filter on Google either. I think the fact that young people use it over google as a search says something.
Actually, google's paid search API can order by date, ascending or descending. Checkout this example: https://quackquackgo.net/?q=hacker+news&lr=&qqg-date=&qqg-ra...
I love this! Often when searching for some event I want the first report, not the spam that followed. Thank you for showing me this service.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#107I'm curious about this as well. Specially how their videos barely buffer and almost instant. you could say that they can preload them cause for you is mostly VOD, but they have live as well and it may not be as instant. its still feels pretty instant no matter how fast you scroll. I don't know how to inspect their app but their website version is using video/x-flv progressive download for playback. which surprised ca…
HLS at least adds significant latency because it involves multiple round trips before you can get the first frame:
- request top level playlist (choice of bitrates, etc)
- request playlist for a particular bitrate
- actually request a segment with some frames in
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#108I 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…
> ByteDance might have financial backing and motivations that make it easier to throw more money at this problem than its American competitors.
American VC can provide almost unlimited money. What it can't do is focus its spending on things that actually work.
The original question frames this in terms of technical talent, but it's not that at all. There are all sorts of US firms and even HN posters who could, given the right spec, come up with as good a solution for the problem of low latency smooth delivery of various videos.
No, the problem is choosing to make the right product. TikTok is good for the same reason that original Whatsapp was good: it had to succeed on its merits, rather than being part of a giant tech company. Whereas how many products has Google launched and then canned in that time? Was Stadia great technologically? Doesn't matter, it's dead.
Conversely, the Reddit video player on web is bad for the same reason that all the rest of the web app is bad: it's supposed to be, because of the dark pattern monetization that's supposed to force you into using the app.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#109I think technologies wise TikTok is similar to that of Youtube Shorts Both seems to preload about 10 secs of next 4-5 videos. I think here is the trick: if your recommendation gets sufficiently good, then user won't eagerly scrolling next just to get content they would actually watch, which makes serving less of noticeable problem. There is a feedback loop here. On TikTok I rarely gets content that would skip at firs…
YouTube Shorts don't seem to operate on the same level as TikTok. Maybe I have a unique experience but every time I look at YouTube Shorts, it's literally the same batch of videos in the same order, day-to-day.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#110I 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…
Even ignoring these things, they seem to do pretty well. I only use TikTok by being linked to it, and the video always works. The same cannot be said of Reddit, which often just shows a spinner, or sometimes it gets stuck midway through the video, or sometimes keeps playing sound even when you navigate to a different page. I think Reddit is just especially terrible. They had to write custom code for handling the view…
The fact that they kept the keyboard shortcuts working is something like a miracle in tech