Eli5: what happens on the server when one selects to watch a movie on Netflix and how the architecture allows 500k other people to watch the same movie almost concurrently?

Question

Eli5: what happens on the server when one selects to watch a movie on Netflix and how the architecture allows 500k other people to watch the same movie almost concurrently?

In: Technology

Answer 1

A lot of the comments also miss out that the film is not one big 5GB file. It’s delivered in thousands of tiny little chunks. You’re watching it at 05:08 and someone else is at 02:12:23, you’re looking at different files.