Revolutionizing Entertainment Industry with Node.js: A Tech Study of Video Production Company

“Node has proven so handy that it can be used to expand to other layers of the stack.”

The Mindful Approach from Our Client to Use Node.js

Our client, a video production company, approached us with a request to build an online streaming application similar to Netflix. They wanted a platform where users could access their video content and stream it seamlessly on any device. The client had a specific vision in mind for their application and wanted to use Node.js technology for its development.

The client wanted to offer its users a seamless streaming experience with high-quality video content and an intuitive user interface. The application was to be built from scratch and had to be scalable, robust, and secure.

Actually, we know that online streaming applications are a form of on-demand software distribution. This means only essential elements of the app have to be downloaded and installed on the preferred device, and all other parts can be downloaded later when they’re required. This allows users to access application data quickly without having to wait until a huge amount of data is downloaded.

However, our client had a question while having a detailed discussion with us how can Node be benefited here?

This is what we are trying to cover in all aspects of Node.js, Node.js architecture, and its features. We will also talk about how we used Node.js to build our client’s project – a live-streaming application like Netflix, which has less than a minute of startup time.

Fact Check of Node.js: “Shifting its user interfaces to Node.js, Netflix has been able to streamline the development, cut the build times, and increase the level of customization of its UIs for each user. Node has proven so handy, that the company is expanding its use to other layers of the stack”, said Kim Trott, director of user interface engineering at Netflix.

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Purpose of Utilizing Node.js for Our Client’s Project

Based on our client project’s requirements to build a live streaming application like Netflix, as an experienced web app development company, we also found out Node.js could be an excellent choice due to several reasons.

The number one was having one common programming language. It was important for our client’s team to be able to write the code once and be able to run it everywhere instead of having to do everything twice. Another important factor was the performance of Node.js. The Node being non-blocking and async appealed to our client as they were hoping to improve the performance. And it worked.

Our client was very clear from the beginning regarding their requirements. However, they just wanted to use Node.js as a primary technology platform. In fact, they had put some requirements (demands) on our desk for their application, which were:

• A performance-driven data-intensive real-time application that could run over various devices.
• An application could be scaled up and down as need
• The application could offer higher performance with fewer resources as well
• Wanted to choose asynchronous loading as they wanted UI customization as per user needs
• Content that is tailored to the individual
• Considering the geography of users should be thought about for distribution.
• Charging users for subscriptions, premium content access, or donations using a built-in payment mechanism.

Making an Online Streaming App Faster with NodeJS

To understand how an online streaming application's mechanism and backend process works, our backend team of developers – Node.js Experts studied which renowned online streaming companies use Node.js. There, we found an answer – Netflix.

Yes, Netflix moved from its legacy app architecture to restructure the Netflix Node.js infrastructure to handle new functions while preserving the stability of the application.

As a top-rated app development company, we figured out several reasons why we chose Node.js. And then, we prepared a case-by-case guide to help you understand why you should also move to Node.js.

Also, there are several reasons:

Real-time Performance: Node.js is built on the V8 JavaScript engine, which allows for fast, real-time performance of the web application. This means that Node.js handled a large number of simultaneous connections without experiencing any performance issues. With the real-time performance of Node.js, our client’s streaming application delivers high-quality video to users in real time without buffering or delays.

Scalability: Since we wanted to build a streaming platform that could handle multiple requests from users, it was essential for us to use technology that could handle massive amounts of data and traffic. Node.js is highly scalable and can handle a large number of concurrent connections with ease. This means that our client’s streaming application handled a growing user base without experiencing any performance issues.

Cross-platform Compatibility: Node.js is cross-platform compatible, meaning that it can run on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS. This made it easier for our Node.js development team to deploy the application across different operating systems. As a result, we found that the streaming application had reached a wider audience with a seamless user experience.

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Rich Ecosystem: We all know that Node.js has a vast and active community that provides various modules and tools to make development easier and faster. With tools like Express.js and Socket.IO, we quickly built robust and scalable streaming applications.

Cost-Effectiveness: Node.js is open-source and free to use, which became a cost-effective option for building a streaming application for our client. With no licensing fees, our client saved a significant amount of money on development costs.

Speedy ISP (Internet Service Providers): ISP’s have indirectly played a big role in the success story of our application. It was one of the core parameters to gauge the app performance. As with speedy ISP, the application’s users got to experience a better quality of the picture, less or no buffering, minor interruptions, and fast start times.

As a result, we used Node.js to develop a fast and scalable streaming application for our client. In addition, Node also helped us handle, fetch and stream videos, generate thumbnails for videos, and serve captions and subtitles for videos.

Setting Up Our Process

Our Node experts created the routes to make requests from the frontend:

• videos route to get a list of videos and their data.
• a route to fetch only one video from our list of videos.
• streaming route to stream the videos.
• captionsroute to add captions to the videos we are streaming.

As a result, our client’s streaming application went to less than a minute.

Actually, to prevent the flow of exceptions in the application to handle large requests, we passed errors back to the caller as callback parameters (instead of “throwing,” as we did in some other environments). If an unhandled exception could surface, we used the Forever module or external tools such as Upstart and Monit and just upstart to monitor the Node.js process and perform the necessary recovery of a crashed instance.

Note: These tools do not address the recovery of the current state of the user session.

We also provided live access to their content 24x7 to their viewers. Now our client can access a global CDN (Content Delivery Network) at a fraction of normal CDN prices. This lets them keep viewers connected all day long.

We leveraged some important features, using Node.js:

• Queued Inputs
• Data Streaming
• Proxy
• Application Monitoring Dashboard
• System Monitoring Dashboard
• Reduce JavaScript Payload Impact

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Set Your Product Up for the Future with Node.js

If this incredible tech story intrigues you, it's time to connect with our experts. As a renowned Node.js development company, we will utilize Node.js in your upcoming project for the entertainment industry.

The following are some reasons that may convince you to choose Node.js to build a live video streaming application like Netflix:

• High performance and scalability
• Versatility
• Fast development process
• Proxy server ability
• Efficient use of the code
• Non-blocking I/O paradigm
• Unified database queries (JSON format)
• Smooth implementation of changes
• Incredible speed of processing
• Data streaming (HTTP requests and responses as a single event)
• Fast and easy testing of new features
• Possibility to build front-end and back-end of an app
• The app and the server are always connected
• The app can handle the increasing number of connections
• Possibilities of the giant open-source community and NPM repository (over 60.000 modules)