There's only so much Netflix could learn from monkeys
Worth a read today is a WSJ article that explores the technical difficulties Netflix faced building tech for its live streams. It was reasonably successful with its first effort, a Chris Rock comedy special, but some errant code knocked out its second live stream, an event built around season 4 of Love is Blind. That stream was delayed and then never happened.
Because Netflix could only test the technology for live streams when it was actually going live, the company did what it probably should have done to begin with: it created a lower stakes test to train with. Baby Gorilla Cam is a livestream of gorillas at the Cleveland Zoo. My daughter watched an episode a few days ago and was entertained by it for almost five minutes before requesting we put on Gabby’s Dollhouse.
Apparently Netflix learned a lot from the experiment, such as moving viewers from one stream to a backup stream if the first one was failing.
“But there’s only so much that we can learn at a small scale versus the experience we had with the Paul-Tyson fight,” [Chief Technology Officer Elizabeth] Stone said.
Testing and retesting new code is a critical part of any software development process. Netflix has a well-known method for this called “Simian Army,” a brigade of different digital agents that attack existing systems in various ways, giving it a sense of their resilience.
When a member of the Simian Army, like Chaos Monkey, succeeds at breaking something, Netflix knows where the code vulnerabilities are and can address them. But given how few live events there had been, and how high profile each one was, the stakes were too high to deploy Chaos Monkey, Stone said.
The most interesting part of the WSJ article is the explanation for the difficulty of live streaming:
When a viewer streams anything on Netflix, including a live event, his or her device sends a request to a nearby Netflix appliance—basically a dedicated piece of Netflix hardware for content delivery—inside a local data center. That appliance then responds by delivering a unique viewing session to that device, a method known as unicast.
That session can come from any one of Netflix’s 18,000 appliances in 175 countries, and Netflix is in charge of directing the user to the best positioned appliance. Typically, the closer the appliance, the sooner the stream comes in, but sometimes appliances can get overloaded if they are trying to process too many sessions at the same time.
So while traditional TV broadcasts the same data stream to all their viewers, on a reliable closed network, Netflix has to deliver as many sessions as it has viewers, each optimized for a range of different devices, and those signals compete with tons of other traffic on the open internet.
Netflix has since launched a live operations center in California and will launch two more this year - one in the UK, the other in Asia. It’s part of a planned push into international live events.
Read the full article at the WSJ.
Mr Burns gets its Boots on
Every so often my pal Jason will take me to the theatre. And every time I think about that episode of Peep Show where Jeremy and Mark are taken to the theatre and discuss how they would be better off at home watching Heat on DVD.
But, I usually have a good time at the theatre. Especially when it draws an element of TV to the stage, so obviously I was very taken with the stage show Mr Burns, a Post-Electric Play.
The play, by Anne Washburn, shows how in a post-apocalyptic society with no power, The Simpsons episode Cape Feare has become a story of mythology. It begins with early survivors entertaining each other with quotes from the episode, but we watch how over time, the story of that episode has become mythology and has been warped through generations of storytellers.
In a NYT theatre review, Ben Brantley wrote:
So you see, what the characters in “Mr. Burns” are trying to recollect in the play’s first act is itself a recollection of many stories, variously told, that came before. And during the 80-some years covered in “Mr. Burns,” that tale made up of other tales will evolve into other shapes until, at the end, we have come full circle. And what we’re returning to is not that original “Simpsons” episode, but something far older and more primal. (I don’t want to give away too much, but in the astonishing final sequence, the composer Michael Friedman has devised a fabulous score that turns Britney Spears and Eminem hits into chthonic chorales.)
This may all sound too clever and ironic, or — to use a prefix turned tiresome adjective — too meta. Yet “Mr. Burns” is also passionately sincere in a way that puts to shame most frivolous postmodern game-playing.
You can find a number of performances of it from a variety of theatres on YouTube, but this is the best recording of one:
The play is in the news today because Boots Riley has confirmed that he will be adapting it into a feature film.
Riley is a fantastically inventive filmmaker and will do a fantastic job with this. I’m very excited.
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No longer a free Byrd in Paradise
Apologies for that painfully awkward sub-headline. And a shout-out to the three people who remember the short-lived Timothy Busfield Hawaii-set family drama The Byrds of Paradise (which also starred a pre-fame Jennifer Love Hewitt and Seth Green).
Timothy Busfield, who has not actually been arrested, turned himself in to the Metro Detention Center in New Mexico following an accusation of criminal sexual contact with a minor and child abuse. It isn’t clear whether he will appear before a judge today or be released on bail.
In a video statement, Busfield said:
“I’m here now. I got the call Friday night. I had to get a lawyer. Saturday, I got in a car. I drove 2000 miles to Albuquerque. I’m going to confront these lies. They’re horrible, they’re all lies, and I did not do anything to those little boys. And I’m I’m going to fight it. I’m going to fight it with a great team, and I’m going to be exonerated. I know I am, because this is all so wrong and all lies, so hang in there, and hopefully I’m out real soon and and back back to work, and I love everybody for supporting me.”
News Desk
New Law & Order: SVU addition Corey Cott has been promoted as a series regular. Read: Deadline
The BBC is set to file a motion to dismiss Donald Trump’s US$5b lawsuit over Panorama’s editing of a speech he made. Read: C21
For the first time, YouTube has surpassed the monthly audience reach of the BBC. Read: Deadline
I’m not sure where The Guardian’s Michael Hogan gets off writing a list of TV’s all-time top spies without mentioning Maxwell Smart or Agent 99 (so secretive that we never learned her actual name). It is otherwise a pretty good and fun list. Read: The Guardian
An eight-part TV series based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is in the works for Sky in the UK, to be produced by Left Bank Pictures. The Stieg Larson book has previously been adapted twice for movies - once in the English-language thriller by David Fincher and also as part of a trilogy of Swedish-language films based on Larson’s Millennium books. The Swedish films were later re-edited into a six-part TV mini-series titled Millennium. Read: THR
Beef and Severence staff writer Anna Ouyang Moench will take over as showrunner on season 2 of Mr & Mrs Smith. Read: THR
Rockstar Games has banned user-created missions in Grand Theft Auto Online that recreate the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Does that leave the door open to recreate other famous assassinations? Asking for a friend. Read: Variety
Production has begun on the second season of Foxtel’s High Country in Australia. Joining the cast this season is Brendan Cowell (I Love You Too, Avatar: The Way of Water). Read: C21
The house used in external shots for 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is up for sale with a cool US$30m price-tag. Also, to break the illusion of Hollywood… the house is actually in Brentwood and not Bel Air. Read: TMZ
Trailer Park
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters returns for season 2 on Apple TV Feb 27.
Portobello debuts on HBO Max Feb 20.
A man on trial. A nation watching.
Vanished debuts on MGM+ Feb 1.
When a couple's trip to Paris takes a dark turn with the sudden disappearance of her boyfriend Tom (Sam Claflin) aboard a train to the south of France, Alice (Kaley Cuoco) is plunged into a web of intrigue and danger, uncovering shocking secrets about the man she thought she knew.
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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