It takes a 'war room' to launch Netflix's series

Netflix invited The Associated Press to its Los Gatos (CA) headquarters for an unprecedented glimpse at the technical preparations that go into the release of its original programming.

"This is Silicon Valley's equivalent of a midnight movie premiere in Hollywood," says Chris Jaffe, Netflix's vice president of product innovation. Engineers are flanked by seven flat-screen televisions on one side of the room and two giant screens on the other. One big screen is scrolling through Twitter to highlight tweets mentioning "Orange Is The New Black," an offbeat drama set in a women's prison. The other screen is listing some of Netflix's most closely guarded information — the rankings of videos that are attracting the most viewers on an hourly basis. If all goes well, the pizza and snacks that Netflix's bleary-eyed workers have been munching will be washed down with a champagne celebration after the show starts streaming.