Happy Monday, everybody! This week is sure to be exciting with news from Sonos and others incoming, but it's still the calm before the September storm of tech news. If you took the weekend off of the internet, you may have missed a lot of big announcements from Disney. I'm trying something a little different with the newsletter today and maybe will experiment with more formats going forward. I'm eager to hear your feedback. Email me at dieter@theverge.com if you have thoughts. -Dieter All right, on to all of the Disney news. Disney's D23 conference (it's always "23," a reference to 1923, which is the year Disney was founded) kicked off over the weekend with a giant pile of surprisingly exciting trailers for shows that are coming to its Disney+ service. (The Mandalorian, in particular, went from something I expected to skip to something I am very hyped for.) Verge reporter Julia Alexander has been on the ground, writing about all of it. As we approach the launch of the service, which seems like a guaranteed hit, it's worth paying attention to the technical aspects. We've been taking for granted the fact that Disney can successfully keep the servers running, but I don't feel bad about that. Disney bought BAMTech, which has long been the gold standard of white-label streaming. Before being bought by Disney, BAMTech successfully handled the streaming services for Major League Baseball and HBO (the good HBO Now service, not the bad HBO Go service). Disney made a lot of savvy moves in the run-up to launching Disney+, but none were savvier than snapping up BAMTech to ensure that its apps will work well. It's pretty remarkable that "working video streaming" is something we can just assume will work now. But we can, as Julia writes: The technology on which BAMTech runs is a big part of Disney+; it's why Disney bought a majority stake in the company. Ensuring that people who come to Disney+ can watch it without much buffering or worse — like not being able to run anything at all, as early Game of Thrones fans will remember — is key. "We are ready," [Michael Paull, president of Disney's streaming services and former CEO of BAMTech] said. "Were spending a lot of time planning for this launch." Here's another thing worth noting: Disney+ will give subscribers four simultaneous streams and free 4K. That's significantly better than what Netflix offers. Maybe over time, Disney will need to ratchet up the restrictions as it sees what its users do, but it's great that Disney+ is starting with relatively generous policies for devices and video quality. Last but certainly not least, Julia reports that the Disney+ app interface feels empty but elegant compared to Netflix. The interface is fascinating in the way it handles the smaller catalog it's launching with (relative to Netflix, anyway). Everything is pretty much broken down into larger collections: Star Wars, Marvel, etc. There aren't a lot of media properties that have that luxury. Disney also gets it when it comes to children's content: parents can set up specific kids' profiles, and even the thumbnails kids see are different from the rest of the app: Unlike Disney+'s main homepage, which is largely driven by text on top of images, the kids' version is driven primarily by photos of characters from movies and TV shows. This is because kids, especially those under the age of seven, don't really read. They associate with characters, Paull said. So the design is extremely different: the section is brighter and bubblier than the homepage, and it's full of Disney characters. These details are the sorts of things that you'd like to think you can take for granted. Luckily, you can. From here, it looks like Disney did the work necessary for a successful launch from every angle imaginable: content, marketing hype, and technical underpinnings. In the streaming wars, I can't think of a surer bet than Disney+ right now. And hey, if the technical aspects don't grab you, these series details and trailers probably will: + What we learned about Star Wars, Pixar, and the MCU from D23's Disney+ panel + Watch the new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer from D23 right now + Disney+ confirms its Obi-Wan Kenobi series will begin shooting in 2020 + The first Mandalorian trailer brings a little Mad Max to Star Wars |
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