Synchronizing internet (over the top) video streams for simultaneous feedback

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium that provides instructions that, when executed by a machine, will cause the machine to perform operations comprising,

• receiving user input indicating the machine should resume playback of a video at an input seek position, wherein the machine is one of a set of two or more current participants in a watch party, wherein the watch party was created responsive to communications between one of the set of current participants and a centralized system, wherein the centralized system transmits through a content delivery network, to each of the set of current participants of the watch party, video segment files to playback a video via an adaptive bit rate protocol, wherein a current position of the watch party is a time indication of a location within the video at which all participants in the watch party are expected to be playing back the video at a current time, wherein the input seek position represents a time indication of a location within the video that is different than the current position of the watch party;
• determining a new reference position and a new reference time based the input seek position, a seek delay and a first current time, wherein the seek delay indicates a prediction of an amount of time required to download enough of the video segment files of the video to begin playback, and wherein the reference position is a time indication of a location within the video that is earlier than the input seek position by the seek delay;
• submitting from the machine to the centralized system a request to:
• change a reference position and a reference time stored for the watch party to the new reference position and the new reference time;
• and
• communicate the change to the others in set of current participants to cause them to seek to positions in the video such that the set of current participants will again all be playing back the video at the current position of the watch party assuming uninterrupted playback of the video by the set of current participants;
• causing the machine to start downloading the video segment files to begin playback of the video at the seek position;
• and
• causing the machine to begin playback of the video at the seek position.