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Hello! Former engineering director for DisneyLife here. Most of the team wasn't allowed to move to Disney+ and have since moved on. The DisneyLife journey would
by madrox 7y ago
Hello! Former engineering director for DisneyLife here. Most of the team wasn't allowed to move to Disney+ and have since moved on. The DisneyLife journey would make a great book, but doesn't really fit into a HN comment.
FWIW, DisneyLife was built by a team smaller than most YC startups. The core technology for DRM/streaming was licensed by another company. When BAM was purchased, the entire product got outsourced. The auth was a central service that we didn't own but were required to use. When I left, we had autoplay of next episodes.
- CountSessine 7y agoHave you ever considered writing a blog about your experiences there? What little you did write here in the response about DisneyLife is actually how I think Disney+ is going to turn out (small team, underfunded, demoralized, forced to license 3rd rate tech based on external mandates, etc).
- madrox 7y agoMaybe one day when I can feel more analytical about it. This is a weird day for me, as you can imagine. Also, lots of people I know and like have put a lot of time into Disney+. I don't want to take away from what they're trying to accomplish right now.
- disneysockputty 7y agoWhat exactly are these folks trying to accomplish beyond promotion? Is there anything beyond selfish interests behind the Disney efforts of late further fragmenting the video streaming ecosphere?
- weej 7y agoI feel ya, Mr. Horn. :-)
- madrox 7y agoWhen are you going to reply to my text messages!
- keenmaster 7y agoThere is way too much riding on Disney+ for it to ever have a small team working on it or reduced funding. It may be the future of Disney.
- madrox 7y agoI think you may be surprised.
- chrisseaton 7y agoIs Disney+ the same tech as DisneyLife? For what it’s worth my daughter loves DisneyLife and I also enjoyed being able to watch the classics so thanks very much for your work.
- madrox 7y agoSome of the central services are, but most of it was redone by BAM...especially the streaming infrastructure. I don't know where they host. Last I heard, they still used their own metal. I have to imagine that changed. The DisneyLife browse experience was built on Google Cloud using App Engine in Python.
- oplav 7y agoWhen BAM was part of MLB Advanced Media, it was pretty heavily involved with AWS, so unless things changed, I would guess there.