Requirements of a Streaming System
Understand the functional and nonfunctional requirements of the video streaming frontend system.
Streaming service like Netflix or YouTube provides on-demand access to a vast library of video content, including movies, TV shows, and original programming. These platforms are designed to deliver personalized content recommendations, seamless video playback, and interactive user interfaces across various devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, smart TVs, and desktops.
The frontend system plays a crucial role in ensuring that users have a smooth and immersive experience for users while handling performance, responsiveness, and scalability challenges. The system should allow personalized content delivery, seamless playback, real-time updates, and smooth navigation.
This chapter explores the frontend System Design for a streaming service like Netflix or YouTube that balances performance and scalability while supporting features like infinite scrolling, real-time updates, and dynamic filtering.
Let’s start with the requirements!
Requirements
To design an effective frontend for a streaming platform, we need to consider both functional and nonfunctional requirements:
Functional requirements
Show feed: The frontend should display personalized content recommendations such as trending shows, new releases, and user-specific picks in scrollable grids or lists.
Search: It must provide a search bar to allow users to search for specific titles, genres, or artists.
Content playback: The Streaming frontend should have a responsive video player supporting multiple formats (e.g., ...