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>>> The logical conclusion, of course, is that Disney should've just bought Netflix Why buy Netflix when you could get a similarly qualified team and infrastru

>>> The logical conclusion, of course, is that Disney should've just bought Netflix Why buy Netflix when you could get a similarly qualified team and infrastructure by buying Hulu? Oh wait... Disney already owns Hulu... Whoops. What about ESPN. ESPN has a really good streaming product. Oh wait... Disney already owns that one too... Disney didn't need to buy Netflix, they just needed to use the resources they already owned!

a-wu 7y ago
ESPN's streaming is one of the worst ones I've ever used. It is constantly buffering on my 275 Mbps downlink and every other time it has issues with authenticating to my provider.
- jonwachob91 7y ago
  Wow. That is interesting. I haven't used ESPN's streaming platform in about a year (since they did that switch and stopped including streaming in cable packages). But I used to stream European Soccer games on my second monitor at work virtually every day. My work internet was maybe 75 mbps and it worked fine.
  - casefields 7y ago
    It’s gotta be location dependent. I’m in Los Angeles and have never had a single issue with ESPN, even going back to the ESPN3/WatchESPN days.
    - a-wu 7y ago
      I actually used to have better service when WatchESPN was standalone. When they started integrating into the main ESPN site (and new player) it started declining for me.
- mikelbring 7y ago
  I have noticed ESPN works way better on my Roku than my Xbox. A lot of the apps do. I use to think it was just ESPN but started to notice this.
- JBlue42 7y ago
  Is that the same as ESPN+? I have that (no tv cable package) and haven't had problems buffering and the video seems more crisp than when I had YouTubeTV. Only issue I've come across is that it eats up RAM in Firefox but has no issues in Chrome. Same for NBC Sports Gold.
newfangle 7y ago
I believe disney has every advantage in the streaming wars so i decided to see if they have any open dev positions and i also decided to check what reviews of working there were like. Seems like Disney does not have an engineering culture and software engineers are at the bottom of the totem pole.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  This kind of makes sense. It isn't their competency. I think it's general advice to never work in a role at a company where that's not their core competency. E.g., engineers are praised at places like Google, etc. Engineers working in entertainment (e.g, Disney) or health care (e.g, Epic Systems) are not as well treated.
  - xmprt 7y ago
    At Google, engineers make money (lots of asterisks with that statement but it's generally true). At Disney, engineers are just another cost.
  - patrickthebold 7y ago
    I agree with Disney, but what does Epic do other than build software?
    - ryanburk 7y ago
      presales, consulting, and support.
      - m000z0rz 7y ago
        Yes - for the software they (disclaimer: we) build. We don't provide healthcare. The comparison with Disney seems misleading.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Disney has always been about technology. From the animatronics and the other attractions at the theme parks to the engineers at Pixar and LucasFilms. As I posted above, they own BAMTech, one of the most well respected companies in the streaming infrastructure space. Building for scale is not hard for good engineers, building for rapid, reliable scale from day one is hard. No one knows how to do it. Building for scale is always about patching holes while you grow slowly. Even Google doesn’t do big band released like Disney tried to do. They keep things in beta, start off with a limited number of invitations until they work all of the kinks out. Netflix didn’t become popular overnight. They had time to scale out slowly and on different devices.
OnlineGladiator 7y ago
Hulu is so buggy on my TV I regularly think of cancelling it. I'm not sure how valuable their technical infrastructure is.
- jamroom 7y ago
  Hulu on my Apple TV is excellent - I find the interface to be much less "noisy" than Netflix and I like the large back catalog on a lot shows. Honestly I subscribed for one show (forget what it was now) but found I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    I'm not talking about the interface. I mean it literally won't load or crashes regularly. I have fiber internet and no issues with Netflix or any other streaming service. I'm glad it works for you, but it's pretty awful for me.
    - azinman2 7y ago
      Strange. I also have no issues with it, although I don't like the UI. Does Hulu work on your normal computers (e.g. not a network-related issue)? Everything updated? I don't know if this works or not, but you might want to try and plug it into a Mac and launch Console to get a sense of what's going on....
    - pfooti 7y ago
      yeah, the same happens for me - i have a relatively recent vizio tv, and the hulu app is terrible - video skips and freezes or the whole app crashes. I've taken to just using my mediapc to run hulu in a chrome tab instead. Both devices are hooked to the same ethernet hub, and other things like prime video and netflix run just fine on the vizio.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        It’s the TV. The built in apps on all smart TVs are subpar.
bduerst 7y ago
Disney is a content conglomerate, not a technology company. It shouldn't be surprising that each individual company silos their technology functions: https://storage.googleapis.com/titlemax-media/1c8ace8f-every-company-disney-owns-13_pageversion-lg.jpg https://storage.googleapis.com/titlemax-media/1c8ace8f-every...
ljm 7y ago
Disney isn’t competing on tech, it’s competing on content. That’s why you’re never going to see another Daredevil or Jessica Jones again.
sturgill 7y ago
They own Bamtech (came out of MLB and eventually powered ESPN as well as WWE and other properties). I was having issues this morning but just with home and category pages. The “featured” links to content worked fine, but the index type pages I’m assuming were just getting hammered.
mike_d 7y ago
Disney Streaming Services is the same team that is already running ESPN, NHL, and via their BAMTECH brand FoxSportsGo, HBO Now, and Playstation Vue. It is possible they just had a massive surge of traffic.
noelsusman 7y ago
ESPN and to a lesser extent Hulu have both been riddled with problems for years. ESPN's streaming service is legendary among sports fans for how terrible it is, though it has finally become usable in the last year or two. YouTube is the only platform that can compare to Netflix on reliability. I'd throw Twitch up there too but their scale is much smaller.
myrandomcomment 7y ago
So I do not believe that ESPN or Hulu have the scale numbers of Netflix. Also in the case of ESPN when they do a live stream at scale the method used is much different setup then video on demand. For example, in a live stream because everyone is watching the same thing you can use multicast replication to your edge pop which dramatically lowers BW and overhead. It would be great if it worked to the end user but ISPs are not setup to handle it. Just checked the numbers: Netflix ~700M, Hulu ~28M, ESPN depending on the source ~6M.

a-wu 7y ago

ESPN's streaming is one of the worst ones I've ever used. It is constantly buffering on my 275 Mbps downlink and every other time it has issues with authenticating to my provider.

jonwachob91 7y ago
Wow. That is interesting. I haven't used ESPN's streaming platform in about a year (since they did that switch and stopped including streaming in cable packages). But I used to stream European Soccer games on my second monitor at work virtually every day. My work internet was maybe 75 mbps and it worked fine.
- casefields 7y ago
  It’s gotta be location dependent. I’m in Los Angeles and have never had a single issue with ESPN, even going back to the ESPN3/WatchESPN days.
  - a-wu 7y ago
    I actually used to have better service when WatchESPN was standalone. When they started integrating into the main ESPN site (and new player) it started declining for me.
mikelbring 7y ago
I have noticed ESPN works way better on my Roku than my Xbox. A lot of the apps do. I use to think it was just ESPN but started to notice this.
JBlue42 7y ago
Is that the same as ESPN+? I have that (no tv cable package) and haven't had problems buffering and the video seems more crisp than when I had YouTubeTV. Only issue I've come across is that it eats up RAM in Firefox but has no issues in Chrome. Same for NBC Sports Gold.

newfangle 7y ago

I believe disney has every advantage in the streaming wars so i decided to see if they have any open dev positions and i also decided to check what reviews of working there were like. Seems like Disney does not have an engineering culture and software engineers are at the bottom of the totem pole.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
This kind of makes sense. It isn't their competency. I think it's general advice to never work in a role at a company where that's not their core competency. E.g., engineers are praised at places like Google, etc. Engineers working in entertainment (e.g, Disney) or health care (e.g, Epic Systems) are not as well treated.
- xmprt 7y ago
  At Google, engineers make money (lots of asterisks with that statement but it's generally true). At Disney, engineers are just another cost.
- patrickthebold 7y ago
  I agree with Disney, but what does Epic do other than build software?
  - ryanburk 7y ago
    presales, consulting, and support.
    - m000z0rz 7y ago
      Yes - for the software they (disclaimer: we) build. We don't provide healthcare. The comparison with Disney seems misleading.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Disney has always been about technology. From the animatronics and the other attractions at the theme parks to the engineers at Pixar and LucasFilms. As I posted above, they own BAMTech, one of the most well respected companies in the streaming infrastructure space. Building for scale is not hard for good engineers, building for rapid, reliable scale from day one is hard. No one knows how to do it. Building for scale is always about patching holes while you grow slowly. Even Google doesn’t do big band released like Disney tried to do. They keep things in beta, start off with a limited number of invitations until they work all of the kinks out. Netflix didn’t become popular overnight. They had time to scale out slowly and on different devices.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago

Hulu is so buggy on my TV I regularly think of cancelling it. I'm not sure how valuable their technical infrastructure is.

jamroom 7y ago
Hulu on my Apple TV is excellent - I find the interface to be much less "noisy" than Netflix and I like the large back catalog on a lot shows. Honestly I subscribed for one show (forget what it was now) but found I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  I'm not talking about the interface. I mean it literally won't load or crashes regularly. I have fiber internet and no issues with Netflix or any other streaming service. I'm glad it works for you, but it's pretty awful for me.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    Strange. I also have no issues with it, although I don't like the UI. Does Hulu work on your normal computers (e.g. not a network-related issue)? Everything updated? I don't know if this works or not, but you might want to try and plug it into a Mac and launch Console to get a sense of what's going on....
  - pfooti 7y ago
    yeah, the same happens for me - i have a relatively recent vizio tv, and the hulu app is terrible - video skips and freezes or the whole app crashes. I've taken to just using my mediapc to run hulu in a chrome tab instead. Both devices are hooked to the same ethernet hub, and other things like prime video and netflix run just fine on the vizio.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      It’s the TV. The built in apps on all smart TVs are subpar.

bduerst 7y ago

Disney is a content conglomerate, not a technology company. It shouldn't be surprising that each individual company silos their technology functions: https://storage.googleapis.com/titlemax-media/1c8ace8f-every-company-disney-owns-13_pageversion-lg.jpg https://storage.googleapis.com/titlemax-media/1c8ace8f-every...

ljm 7y ago

Disney isn’t competing on tech, it’s competing on content. That’s why you’re never going to see another Daredevil or Jessica Jones again.

sturgill 7y ago

They own Bamtech (came out of MLB and eventually powered ESPN as well as WWE and other properties). I was having issues this morning but just with home and category pages. The “featured” links to content worked fine, but the index type pages I’m assuming were just getting hammered.

mike_d 7y ago

Disney Streaming Services is the same team that is already running ESPN, NHL, and via their BAMTECH brand FoxSportsGo, HBO Now, and Playstation Vue. It is possible they just had a massive surge of traffic.

noelsusman 7y ago

ESPN and to a lesser extent Hulu have both been riddled with problems for years. ESPN's streaming service is legendary among sports fans for how terrible it is, though it has finally become usable in the last year or two. YouTube is the only platform that can compare to Netflix on reliability. I'd throw Twitch up there too but their scale is much smaller.

myrandomcomment 7y ago

So I do not believe that ESPN or Hulu have the scale numbers of Netflix. Also in the case of ESPN when they do a live stream at scale the method used is much different setup then video on demand. For example, in a live stream because everyone is watching the same thing you can use multicast replication to your edge pop which dramatically lowers BW and overhead. It would be great if it worked to the end user but ISPs are not setup to handle it. Just checked the numbers: Netflix ~700M, Hulu ~28M, ESPN depending on the source ~6M.