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Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by jedberg on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:31PM (#32523853)
It's funny you mention this. When I worked at Netflix, we looked at making streaming peer to peer. There were a lot of problems with it though. Privacy issues, most people have terrible upload bandwidth from home, people didn't like the idea of their hardware serving other customers, home hardware is flakey so you'd constantly be doing client selection, and other problems.

So it turns out decentralized multi routed is not a good solution for video streaming.

Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by gizajob on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:33PM (#32523880)
Works great for storing pirated content though
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by jedberg on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:36PM (#32523921)
Usually you aren't live streaming your pirated content right off other people's boxes. You download it first and then view it. So you don't need every chunk available at just the right time.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by naet on Friday August 19, 2022 @02:02PM (#32524233)
Somebody I know (cough) starts torrent downloads in sequential order after downloading the first and last chunk, and then opens the file in VLC while it is downloading.

Works amazingly well for watching something front to back if your download speed is fast enough; you'd never know it wasn't being streamed. The hardest part is finding a good torrent for what you want to watch. Ironically the Netflix catalog is one of the most easily available to pirate since people rip it directly from web.

Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by monocasa on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:48PM (#32524051)
Popcorn Time worked pretty well with just that model; watching more or less immediately is it's downloaded in order from the swarm.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by jedberg on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:51PM (#32524082)
Did you actually use Popcorn time? It got stuck all the time waiting for a chunk. Also, again, people sharing pirated content don't care about privacy and are happy to share their home hardware for other people to use. Paying customers care about that stuff.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by monocasa on Friday August 19, 2022 @04:13PM (#32525469)
I have; it worked flawlessly for content that was decently seeded. And that's without the sorts of table stakes you'd expect for a streaming platform like the same content encoded at different bit rates, but chunked on the same boundaries so you can dynamically change bitrate as your buffer depletes.

And I'm not sure most people actually care if their home hardware is being used for whatever by the service they're using, or else there'd be pushback on electron apps from more than just HN.

The sense I always got from Netflix's P2P work was that it was heavily tied into the political battles wrt the BS arguments that Netflix should pay for peering with tier 2 ISPs. Did this work there continue much after that problem went quieter?

Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by PaywallBuster on Friday August 19, 2022 @02:27PM (#32524486)
Used it dozens of times, usually works fine for the popular content.

Good quality, barely any buffering.

The niche content may be too difficult for a "live" streaming experience.

Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by chasd00 on Friday August 19, 2022 @02:07PM (#32524284)
wouldn't a peer-to-peer setup be a non-starter legally? ..or at least incredibly high risk. I could see major ISPs complaining if Netflix is using the upstream side of the ISP's customers for profit.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by tinus_hn on Friday August 19, 2022 @02:37PM (#32524585)
No, Microsoft is doing the same thing and nobody cares. Just mention it the small print in the agreement and offer a way to turn it off.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by jedberg on Friday August 19, 2022 @02:08PM (#32524291)
Yes. :)
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by seydor on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:34PM (#32523889)
recently i see a lot of people with very high upload speeds. Nobody is using them though, but nominally they are there.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by jedberg on Friday August 19, 2022 @01:37PM (#32523926)
Sure, very recently. But all the other issues still apply. A real time feed from random people's machines is very difficult at best.
Re:Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] by seydor on Friday August 19, 2022 @03:00PM (#32524826)
I ve watched a lot of HBO (not available here) on popcorn time