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Comment by fidotron | Hacker News Reader

Netflix get away with it because they own the result at the end of the process. If you were to suggest these workflows to other studios they'd balk at the idea of having the raw stuff being uploaded to the cloud etc. If they tried selling this as a solution do we think people outside Netflix would buy and use it?

One of the people I worked with that is now at Netflix on this stuff was so violently opposed to not owning his own in office render farm and drive array it verged on ridiculous.

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The major studios use cloud services all the time. For example, Paramount uses AWS. Disney has its own internal cloud system but also uses a combination of external clouds like AWS.

The resistance to cloud services is based on preventing leaks, not opposition to technology.

And in specific response to your comment: Netflix's "technology" is just a content management system. They're just reinventing a wheel that many of their competitors already use and bragging about something that Disney, Paramount, etc., did over a decade ago when they began embracing digital-first production.

“major studios do use some cloud services” is not the issue. The problem being addressed is that the “script to screen” process is typically an antiquated mishmash of offline-first vendors. Netflix reinvented that with a cloud-first process.

“Digital-first production” can mean lots of things, so when you say Disney, Paramount, etc did this a decade ago, you’ll have to be more specific. Do you mean an end to end digital process? That’s not what this is about. Have you worked on a Netflix production? It’s night and day different from the studios you mentioned.

> they'd balk at the idea of having the raw stuff being uploaded to the cloud

Why?

Perhaps over fears of their shows getting leaked early. Apple apparently has people using Remote Desktop for severance: https://tedium.co/2025/03/29/severance-apple-remote-editing-...

What? Cloud media asset management systems are full of raw stuff.

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