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PeerTube v6

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Re: PeerTube v6

#181

Post by Sean-Der »

pzmarzly wrote: post #170
Avamander wrote: post #24

Removal of WebTorrent is sad, as it's still WIP in actual torrent clients (but those do move slow anyways, it's not WebTorrent's fault). So it was removed before it got a chance in an ecosystem that moves slow. It also takes PeerTube instances further away from being able to P2P without too many extra steps other than a shared infohash (and DHT). Video re-upload conflicts with such immutable solutions, but that's mor…

> but those do move slow anyways, it's not WebTorrent's fault Given how complicated WebRTC is, I wouldn't put the blame on torrent clients either. libwebrtc by Google is the de-facto standard, and afaik you need to compile all of it (including video and audio codecs) even though WebTorrent only cares about data streams. Even for Node.js, which should be an easy choice since webtorrent is written in JS, your choice is…

You have more choices then that for node.js

* https://github.com/shinyoshiaki/werift-webrtc

* https://github.com/murat-dogan/node-datachannel

If libwebrtc fits your needs you totally should use it! Alternatives have existed for years though

Re: PeerTube v6

#182

Post by goatmeal »

Animats wrote: post #173
Aachen wrote: post #7

Peertube is something I've been meaning to use, so I'm interested but don't know much about it. The post says they dropped webtorrent in favor of HLS. Does this mean Peertube is no longer peer-to-peer? HLS is a codec or container format or something, whereas webtorrent sounds like a method to have peers stream video data to each other such that the server doesn't easily bog down under traffic spikes. That seemed like…

PeerTube is distributed streaming , not distributed hosting . The master copy is hosted on some web site, yours or someone else's. If enough people are watching, a peer to peer streaming distribution system kicks in to provide more bandwidth. It's just a way to have many viewers without needing huge hosting bandwidth. Almost nobody uses PeerTube. Here's the "Trending" list on Hardlimit.[1] 217 views of the top video.…

no need to be so dismissive. my instance of peertube doesn't even show up on that indexer you linked. lots of people who make different kinds of fediverse indexers end up excluding a ton of instances by accident or on purpose.

Re: PeerTube v6

#183

Post by apitman »

goatmeal wrote: post #182
Animats wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PeerTube is distributed streaming , not distributed hosting . The master copy is hosted on some web site, yours or someone else's. If enough people are watching, a peer to peer streaming distribution system kicks in to provide more bandwidth. It's just a way to have many viewers without needing huge hosting bandwidth. Almost nobody uses PeerTube. Here's the "Trending" list on Hardlimit.[1] 217 views of the top video.…

no need to be so dismissive. my instance of peertube doesn't even show up on that indexer you linked. lots of people who make different kinds of fediverse indexers end up excluding a ton of instances by accident or on purpose.

GP takes the time to upload his videos to PeerTube, which I'd say makes him less dismissive than pretty much everyone.

Re: PeerTube v6

#184

Post by acdha »

_heimdall wrote: post #175
acdha wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is getting to critical mass: every service has to start somewhere but if I join and only see uninteresting stuff, I probably won’t stick around long enough for you to follow me, etc. Niche services have that bootstrapping problem where they need early users but also don’t grow if their primary adopters are people who were banned elsewhere (e.g. Gab) or are very tightly ideological (Truth Social has a whol…

Discovery is a challenge for sure. I just wonder how far a service could get with an entirely user-driven discovery, follows, search, etc. Platforms get into the business of censorship when they attempt to currate content (handpicked or algorithmic). Engagement is obviously much lower if you aren't running an algorithm designed to hook everyone on doom scrolling, but plenty of people still happily use an RSS reader a…

But where did those people go away to? My memory is that we moved from web rings and blog rolls to social media sites which increasingly made certain that you’d never lack for new content. Even if you’re not doomscrolling, this feels like humanity’s equivalent to moths chasing the brightest light around.

Re: PeerTube v6

#185

Post by _heimdall »

acdha wrote: post #184
_heimdall wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discovery is a challenge for sure. I just wonder how far a service could get with an entirely user-driven discovery, follows, search, etc. Platforms get into the business of censorship when they attempt to currate content (handpicked or algorithmic). Engagement is obviously much lower if you aren't running an algorithm designed to hook everyone on doom scrolling, but plenty of people still happily use an RSS reader a…

But where did those people go away to? My memory is that we moved from web rings and blog rolls to social media sites which increasingly made certain that you’d never lack for new content. Even if you’re not doomscrolling, this feels like humanity’s equivalent to moths chasing the brightest light around.

That's my recollection as well, and I take the same lesson from it with regards to human nature.

There is still a comparatively small bit active community of webrings, blog rolls, etc today. What I'm less certain of is whether the driver really consumers chasing the brightest light or platforms taking advantage of basic psych tricks to drive addictive behavior (or both).

Re: PeerTube v6

#186

Post by pzmarzly »

Sean-Der wrote: post #181
pzmarzly wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but those do move slow anyways, it's not WebTorrent's fault Given how complicated WebRTC is, I wouldn't put the blame on torrent clients either. libwebrtc by Google is the de-facto standard, and afaik you need to compile all of it (including video and audio codecs) even though WebTorrent only cares about data streams. Even for Node.js, which should be an easy choice since webtorrent is written in JS, your choice is…

You have more choices then that for node.js * https://github.com/shinyoshiaki/werift-webrtc * https://github.com/murat-dogan/node-datachannel If libwebrtc fits your needs you totally should use it! Alternatives have existed for years though

Those are absolutely amazing libraries, thanks for linking! I see that much has changed for the better in the past year.

Re: PeerTube v6

#187

Post by vfclists »

sschueller wrote: post #4

A bit of topic. I created a peertube client[1] for android a few years ago. I love peertube and I really believe in the project however the effort I have put into the client and the rewrite which I almost finished using jetpack/mvvm structure just doesn't seem to be worth it. I feel bad for abandoning it but I think I may have too. [1] https://github.com/sschueller/peertube-android

You haven't explained why its not worth it.

Is it because there is no interest in Peertube, or because there is no demand for an Android version?

It looks like a chicken and egg situation. Is it an Android or IOS app for Peertube that will make Peertube popular, or is it Peertube popularity that will create demand for an Android app?

I think it is more the former than the latter. I can't judge your motives for abandoning it, but I think you should persist and go that last mile which is usually the hardest of all.

Re: PeerTube v6

#188

Post by calamari4065 »

I run my own peertube instance like I run my own mastodon instance.

Mastodon is cool, your private instance can just link up to any other instance and get all the data. If you search for something, your instance will proxy the search back to the originating server. The experience is only trivially more annoying than just using one of the big servers.

Peertube is not like that. Notionally it supports all the same features, but when all the details come together, it just doesn't work.

Say you have a private instance and you just want to browse videos. How do you find remote content? You can have your server 'follow' another, duplicating its timeline into yours... If the remote server allows it. As a user, you can simply follow any channel anywhere and it will populate into your server's local timeline.

But what about search? You have to use a third party search index, and it's opt-in. Or you can go to each remote instance you know of and search there directly.

Assuming you have a bunch of content coming into your server somehow, how do you find something to watch? You don't! Most of the filtering and searching is useless. Your individual user subscription feed is the only thing even remotely reliable.

As much as I want to love PeerTube, I really, really hate it. Discoverability is so bad that the whole platform is nearly unusable.

Realistically I'm sure that the best results you can get is just from signing up to the largest instance you can find. Which really defeats the entire point of it being distributed and federated.

It really doesn't matter how many videos exist on the service if no one can find them. PeerTube is going to have to put some serious effort into this problem or they're going to fade into irrelevancy in a few years.

Re: PeerTube v6

#189

Post by stefandesu »

tshaddox wrote: post #168
zoogeny wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To combat your pessimism - I would point to podcasts. In general, these were distributed on free platforms. The content became profitable through sponsorships. That is, the content creator does a deal directly with a brand to include a spot within the content read out by the presenter. So, there is a clear and well-trodden path to monetization for content creators even on free distribution platforms. Of course, as an…

I don't have data about how common various podcast monetizing techniques are, but my impression is that it's quite common for the podcast hosting provider to inject ads into the audio file at download time , enabling them to target ads based on the downloader's IP address or whatever other information they have about the downloader.

> inject ads into the audio file at download time, enabling them to target ads based on the downloader's IP address

I've only had this happen once. The experience was so irritating that I probably won't ever listen to a podcast that does this. It just cut off without notice and suddenly a German ad played during an English-speaking podcast. (I get why they do it, but I hate it. In that particular case, I actually signed up for their ad-free premium thing because I really want to listen to it and it's actually reasonably priced.)

Re: PeerTube v6

#190

Post by stefandesu »

entrepy123 wrote: post #165

How do people rate the ease of installing and administrating PeerTube? Is there a way to install PeerTube that is as easy as MediaCMS [0, 1] installation [2]? I ask because I evaluated options for self-hosted video (basically YouTube replacements). PeerTube is more mature/popular than MediaCMS by far, by the looks of it. However, I really wanted "easy" and ended up landing with MediaCMS for now. I somewhat wonder abo…

I was easily able to set up a PeerTube instance for mostly internal use among my friends with Docker. I don't remember how long it took, but I don't think I've encountered many issues. Adding login via our existing LDAP server was super easy, too.
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