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Netflix’s Media Production Suite

netflixtechblog.com

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Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#101

Post by gabriel666smith »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #96
gabriel666smith wrote: post #94

> “… automation became imperative. The intricacies of color and framing management, along with deliverables, must be seamlessly controlled and effortlessly managed by the user, without the need for manual intervention. Therefore, we cannot lean into humans configuring JSON files behind the scenes to map camera formats into deliverables.” I’d often thought (critically) about the lack of visual diversity in Netflix out…

This. “the medium is the message” Marshall McLuhan. The actual content is invariably a result of the infrastructure behind it. And it’s not just the image, it’s also what kind of scripts are written, what kind of audience insights are passed on to creative producers, what kind of creative teams are selected. Is it proving short-sighted? If you’re optimizing for cinematic art, then yeah. But they’re optimizing for sub…

That’s interesting. I’d love to read those papers, if you remember what they were.

I do wonder if an in-house aesthetic can become ‘tacky’ in the age of global media - can trends ‘die’ when there are still billions more people to reach? And will a creative org structure like this be able to move fast enough should that happen? I don’t think we know the answer to that yet.

I personally believe (maybe optimistically!) that this will be an important question even though Netflix’s natural conclusion is to move towards the subscription-retaining, low-creative products like sports that you mentioned.

The problem with those entertainment products is that they have intrinsic value: if the provider is adding little value besides distribution, some (or lots) of users will pirate that content. Super apparent in sports media.

Maybe it’s a naive hope, rather than a belief, but I hope / believe that because of this, companies like Netflix will be ultimately forced by users to have more idiosyncrasy in their production pipeline and output. It’ll be really interesting to find out!

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#102

Post by crazygringo »

fastball wrote: post #35
crazygringo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? Have you watched Adolescence ? It's got more soul and artistic merit than practically anything else I've ever seen. And that was just last week. Maid ? The Queen's Gambit ? Baby Reindeer ? The Crown ? Ripley ? BoJack Horseman ? Sure they make a lot of schlock too, because they're a business and that's what most of their audience wants . But I don't see how you could possibly criticize them for that w…

You don't need this pipeline to produce 6 shows over a decade. Said another way, they almost certainly would not have bothered to build this system if the purpose was mainly to produce the shows you mention. The reason these systems exist is to enable the creation of hundreds or thousands of productions.

Those were just six examples. There are many more.

But OK yes, Netflix produces a lot of volume because that's also what its viewers want. Are you saying that's a bad thing?

Sometimes people get home from an exhausting stressful day at work and they just need to relax with some mindless entertainment. And that's OK. Not everything has to be art.

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#103

Post by ancientworldnow »

shubhamjain wrote: post #76

With the asset sizes they are talking about (hundreds of terabytes), how does it make it feasible to do this over the wire? Even with 1Gbps connection, it will take ~10 days to upload a single 100TB original camera file. And there could be several.

A single file isn't 100TB - an entire production of OCF is ~200TB. A single take is typically 10-200GB depending on a variety of factors.

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#105

Post by geodel »

dkh wrote: post #73
gcanyon wrote: post #33

I read through that whole article thinking, - I wonder what the UI looks like compared to tools I use now - I wonder if there will be a free tier, since my video needs are modest It never occurred to me until I reached the end that this wasn't a "enjoy this tool we made" post, but instead a "look how awesome we are" post. :-/

For people in within the industry or the tech side of it, Netflix’s engineering blog has always been fascinating and extremely useful because of the insane amount of stuff in this space they have solved or reworked. They have put more into tech side of modern-day TV/film than anybody else, and it's not even close. In a technical/workflow sense, working on a Netflix show is unlike working on any other. I have my issue…

Netflix is case of "nothing succeeds like success". We have at work a lot of Netflix libraries, frameworks etc which are in deprecated / half-assed state waiting to be replaced for years. It all works for Netflix because they can spend ton of money , resources and people and make even dubious shit work.

I think it will remain fine for Netflix in any case keep or replace. But companies who keep using Netflix OSS, or architecture ideas only because Netflix is so cool are going to have worse outcomes. Case in point is Micro services revolution which is almost invented and promoted by Netflix.

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#107

Post by red-iron-pine »

diab0lic wrote: post #97
penultimatename wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve sat through a few Netflix talks and they’re all the same flavor of “look what you can achieve with millions of dollars and hundreds of engineers.” They’re somewhat interesting from an architectural perspective, but even scaled down versions aren’t feasible in most environments and it leaves a taste in your mouth that you just sat through a recruiting pitch.

Until a few years ago most projects at Netflix were done with a handful of engineers ( <= 6 ). A dozen people working on something would have been considered very large. Four dozen would have been considered a company wide effort.

isn't the TCO for those engineers also something like 400k each? not talking Principle Big-Dick Super-Staff Engineer, but like mid-level.

Netflix was famous for that, too -- no RSUs, just straight cash, and we'll fire you if we think you can't deliver.

100s of devs would essentially be their entire, company-wide, operating budget; it's gotta be like 10-15 people tops on these things.

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#108

Post by red-iron-pine »

dagmx wrote: post #52
gcanyon wrote: post #33

I read through that whole article thinking, - I wonder what the UI looks like compared to tools I use now - I wonder if there will be a free tier, since my video needs are modest It never occurred to me until I reached the end that this wasn't a "enjoy this tool we made" post, but instead a "look how awesome we are" post. :-/

I know quite a few people who worked on this and unfortunately this is effectively the product. It’s a company that prioritizes micro services and enterprise style crud apps internally. I’ve seen so many of their presentations and it’s like an IBM demo. It’s data , data, data. That’s their approach to everything.

they're streaming fantastic quantities of movies in HD, constantly.

why wouldn't data data data be their approach?

that and churning out design-by-keyword visual media

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#109

Post by okdood64 »

fidotron wrote: post #98
dkh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people in within the industry or the tech side of it, Netflix’s engineering blog has always been fascinating and extremely useful because of the insane amount of stuff in this space they have solved or reworked. They have put more into tech side of modern-day TV/film than anybody else, and it's not even close. In a technical/workflow sense, working on a Netflix show is unlike working on any other. I have my issue…

Netflix get away with it because they own the result at the end of the process. If you were to suggest these workflows to other studios they'd balk at the idea of having the raw stuff being uploaded to the cloud etc. If they tried selling this as a solution do we think people outside Netflix would buy and use it? One of the people I worked with that is now at Netflix on this stuff was so violently opposed to not owni…

> they'd balk at the idea of having the raw stuff being uploaded to the cloud

Why?

Re: Netflix’s Media Production Suite

#110

Post by okdood64 »

_m_p wrote: post #29

I was reading about the cinematography of _Collateral_, possibly the first large budget feature film to be shot digitally, and one of the issues back in 2004 when it was made was the amount of storage required for digital video and the risk of not being able to retrieve the images from the data stores: > “We did massive testing with the hard drives, and everything was great, and then we had an experience where we sho…

> large budget feature

What does this mean?

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