PeerTube news!

This version comes with a small technical challenge that we're proud to have overcome! This new feature won't be as visible as a graphical change, but it will make hosting a PeerTube platform easier, more resilient and cheaper.

Let's see what it's all about :)

This is a resolution: video transcoding

Video transcoding is the process of converting a video file into different formats that can be played on different devices. In simple terms, it takes your video file (for example, mp4) and converts it into different formats that can be read by web browsers, applications, etc. Transcoding is done when a video is uploaded to the PeerTube instance, during live broadcasts or when editing your video with the PeerTube Studio.

In addition to the formats, transcoding allows you to have different video qualities (from pixel mush to the possibility of seeing an ant when zooming in on a panorama). These are the famous '720p', '1080p' and so on.

The problem is that transcoding 4k videos of kittens requires a lot of server computing resources (called "CPU"). Even a small kitten. And big CPUs mean big prices. It's a shame to have to rent a more powerful server just to transcode faster one big video a month.

If only we had a solution... 🤔

This is an evolution: remote transcoding

The solution we propose: remote transcoding! The idea is to let the servers of the PeerTube platform broadcast the videos, by having the ability to run transcoding tasks on other computers (for example, remote servers, that could be dedicated to the task, that could be shared, etc.). You can find out how to do this in the documentation.

We explain here how to set up one of these remote servers by installing a "PeerTube runner" on it. You can even turn your personal computer into a runner using command lines, just long enough to transcode your videos! Yes, it is THAT flexible!

For the more tech-savvy among us, this feature was inspired by Gitlab runners for their architecture and BOINC for their ease of use. This is one of the strengths of free-libre softwares: rather than reinventing the wheel, we take inspiration from the work of those who were there before and build a new brick for those who come after us!

You can find out more in our documentation.

You can see how it's done on this video and also learn more from this video of Jeena (who shares his chronicles as a PeerTube platform administrator on his PeerTube instance, of course) presenting how remote transcoding works.

This is a (French) revolution

With the federation of video catalogues, the peer-to-peer broadcasting in the event of a video's success, the redundancy of videos for PeerTube platforms that want to help each other, the possibility of storing videos on a dedicated server... PeerTube has always aimed to democratize online video hosting and distribution.

Remote transcoding takes a step further by encouraging the pooling of CPU-intensive tasks and (we hope) encouraging communities to work together. From now on, a PeerTube platform can be hosted on very low-power (and therefore low-cost) servers.

In addition, this new feature has been designed to, in the future, enable other CPU-intensive tasks to be performed remotely (such as audio-to-text video transcription).

A technical feature like remote transcoding isn't exactly sexy. These developments are not the easiest to fund, especially through donations. We'd like to thank NLnet for supporting us and giving us access to NGI0's funding programs that funded this feature!

These are improvements

In addition to remote transcoding, 5.2 includes a number of improvements:

• RSS feeds for podcasts: a first building block has been developed to allow your PeerTube content to be integrated into podcast players!
• Mouse-free navigation: if you like to navigate using only the keyboard, you'll love some improvements!
• The Studio feature (introduced in version 4.2), which allows you to edit an uploaded video, has finally been documented (even though it is incredibly simple)!
• Define the visibility of a replay: it is now possible to define a different visibility for a replay than for a live. This means you can make a live public, but make the replay private (or vice versa, or whatever)! This feature was developed by Wicklow, a PeerTube development intern: thanks to him!
  

  

This is a call for donations

Remote transcoding is brand new: we need your feedback on how to improve it (and you can also just tell us you like it). The best place to do this is our forum).

What's next? PeerTube is on its way to v6, towards the end of the year. In this version you'll be able to password protect videos (thanks to Wicklow!), get a preview thumbnail by hovering over the playback bar, add chapters to your video and even upload a new version of your video. In short, we've got a lot of work to do!

Do you want to help us improve PeerTube? You can do so by contributing to the software, sharing this information and (if you can afford it) making a donation to our not-for-proft, Framasoft.

Thanks in advance for your support!

Framasoft

Version 5.1 of PeerTube has been released! On the menu: moderation of account creation, a button to resume live broadcasting, improved management of external authentication plugins... and other useful developments. Let's take a tour of the new features!

Moderated account creation requests

First new feature in this minor release: account creation requests can now be validated a priori by administrators.

When this feature is enabled and a person registers on an instance, they will have to fill in a field (such as "Why do I want to create an account on this platform?") and then wait for their registration to be validated before they can access their account.

The moderators see the different requests and can accept or reject them.

An email is sent directly to the user when the request is processed. The account is automatically created when the request is approved.

In this way, we hope to allow different instances to reopen their registrations without risking potential waves of spam.

New "Resume Live" button

A "resume live" button has been added to the player! The button is red when the player is synchronized with the current live stream and grey when it is not. A single click to resynchronise the live stream is quite handy!

Improved management of external authentication plugins

Developers will be able to take advantage of an improvement to the API for external authentication plugins: define a quota for users, update users or implement an automatic redirect to the external service when a session expires. These improvements were financed by the Department of Public Education (DIP) of the State of Geneva. Thanks!

And more...

This version has seen various improvements to the accessibility of the interface, as well as performance improvements (optimized rendering of the home page editor and more efficient comment retrieval).

Another development worth mentioning is the arrival of two new languages: Icelandic and Ukrainian. Thanks to the contributors for these translations!

We have also fixed many bugs reported by the community. We are now up to more than 4000 tickets processed since the beginning of the PeerTube project, and that seems huge! This time spent improving, maintaining and supporting the software is funded directly by you, through your donations. Thank you very much!

We hope you find this new version useful and we thank again all PeerTube contributors!

Framasoft

We (Framasoft, a small not-for-profit association!) are proud to present our roadmap for the developments and side projects we have planned for PeerTube in 2023. This roadmap combines both the progress we wanted to make to the software and the proposals you have sent us over the last few months.

It is important to note that we are dedicating only one developer to PeerTube (yes, only one!), PeerTube being one of more than fifty projects led by our association.

End of February: PeerTube 5.1

We plan to release version 5.1 at the end of February. Here are the new features we are planning to release:

• Easier management of account registrations (with administrator approval)
• Developers will be able to take advantage of an improved API for external authentication plugins (setting a quota, updating the user, etc.)
• Optimize retrieval of video comments
• Adding a Resume Live button in the video player
• Improvements and bug fixes (including bugs found during the end of December load test, in French)

May 2023: PeerTube 5.2

This May we plan to release PeerTube 5.2, which will feature remote transcoding (feature that received many votes!). This will reduce the power required for a PeerTube server by delegating power consuming tasks to external machines.
Initially this will only be for hosted videos, but will be designed to be able to evolve (for livestreams for example). Quite a technical challenge ahead!

November-December 2023: PeerTube v6

We plan to release the next major version of PeerTube at the end of the year, and the new features are all inspired by your suggestions on our feedback tool Let's Improve PeerTube. You will find:

• Adding chapters to videos
• Displaying a preview thumbnail in the progress bar
• Protecting videos with a password/token
• The possibility to upload a new version of your video

But also...

At the beginning of this year, we welcome Wicklow in the team, for a 6 months internship. This is an opportunity to support the PeerTube developer and to familiarize more people with the code base of the software.

We will also of course continue to fix bugs, clean up the code and improve the architecture of the software and support external and community development, such as the Live-Chat plugin.

Finally, we will work on content curation for our Peer.tube showcase platform (yes, with a dot in the middle!), to allow us to present a gateway to PeerTube, which looks like Framasoft.

PeerTube, like all our projects, is mainly funded by donations to our association. On this roadmap, only the remote transcoding feature of v5.2 is already funded, thanks to a donation from the NLnet foundation.

Do you want to help us achieve this roadmap? You can support us by contributing to PeerTube, by sharing this information and (if you can afford it) by making a donation to Framasoft.

Thank you in advance for your support!
Framasoft

We, Framasoft, have been developing the PeerTube software for 5+ years.

Framasoft is a French non-profit of 38 members (10 employees, 28 volunteers), PeerTube is one of our 50+ projects, and we do all this work with only one developer (who is not event full time on PeerTube). Please note that maybe 2 or 3 among us understand, more or less fluently, German.

On dec. 19th, a journalist from Tagesspiegel Background informed us that a study by German researchers on the use of PeerTube by right-wing extremists was about to be published. He asked us 3 questions about the scope of the problem and what could be done, and we answered him that day.

On dec. 20th, we have been able to get this study (it is available online here) and translate it. This is why it took us time to write and publish a collective statement.

First of all, we would like to thank the researchers of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue for their work. The more we will gain knowledge of how disinformation manipulators and right-wing extremists use PeerTube, the more the PeerTube communities will learn how to effectively protect themselves from such content.

Shared knowledge is shared power.

PeerTube says no to fascists and conspiracy manipulators

Let's be crystal clear: Framasoft's values are fundamentally opposed to right-wing extremism. This is also true for conspiratorial manipulations that lead to hurting and killing people (here is our recently published manifest stating our core values - Warning: may be poorly translated from French).

We agree with the results of the study. In our experience, right-wing extremists represent a very, very small share of the PeerTube federation (called the "vidiverse"), but they know how to be very loud, energy consuming trolls.

We should not ignore the fact that, in 2022, if any society is producing fascist and Nazi groups, it is not because of technology, but because of a deeper problem, which is mainly related to the complacency of some governments with extreme right-wing ideas. Nevertheless, it is also true that some technical devices that work on the basis of audience measurement and advertising are the first to disseminate extremist ideas. The Fediverse does not work like that, but we should work to keep it healthy.

PeerTube is free software, we cannot prevent these people from using it. Germany, France and most modern democracies have already introduced laws that can lead Justice to condemn PeerTube administrators who knowingly and willingly host hateful and Nazi content.

What we can do (and have been doing and are willing to continue) is giving PeerTube communities the tools to moderate, protect themselves from and ostracize right-wing extremists and harmful PeerTube platforms.

We "moderate" (read: ban) fascist content from any tool we manage. Thus, we regularly clean the instance index. For example we removed from the index problematic instances, several of which are German. This does not prevent these instances from existing, but at least we try to keep the index healthy.

We need the communities to step up

The study clearly states it: one of the major solutions to such content relies in empowering the communities.

PeerTube-isolation is a blocklist that is maintained in total independence from us. Installing their plugin on your PeerTube platform can help you make sure you won't federate with dangerous content.

We encourage anyone who wants to help to contribute to the PeerTube-Isolation community work. We automatically pull out the instances they block from the index that feeds SepiaSearch, our PeerTube Search Engine.

Our goal is to keep harmful and hateful content isolated in their own federation bubble, where they can be as loud as they want. Thus they won't contaminate others with their dangerous filth. Thus they'll understand they are not welcomed in the PeerTube vidiverse, and they won't have any interest trying to invest it.

In addition, we are always exploring new ways to help PeerTube communities and administrators moderate hate speech and harmful content. If you can think of a feature we could add to PeerTube to help isolating such filth, please share it on Let's Improve PeerTube.

A call to (help) PeerTube instance administrators

That being said, a tool can only do so much.

Instance administrators need help, because they have several tasks to fulfill: system administration (backup, updates, etc.), content curation (do I want to host edutainment videos? original fictions? videos by Queer creators?), federation policies (which platforms do I want mine to follow? which follows do I accept?), moderation policies (and moderation can be needed in the federation choices, content hosted, comments, etc.)

It is a very complex job, and usually you should not to be alone to complete it. It is a crucial job, though. We need instance administrators to have rules about the platform they federate with, so they can enforce their own policies and - hopefully- stop the dissemination of harmful and dangerous content. But it is a lot of work, so it requires a lot of help.

If you want to help, try to join a PeerTube administration team. Offer them help. Report problematic content. If public organizations can provide training, help, and tools, it can always be useful ! But PeerTube is a Commons: we cannot address such an issue unless we work together as a (diverse and plural) community.

Shared knowledge is shared power

The PeerTube communities sure need more shared knowledge on right-wing extremists, their content, their methods, their arguments & fallacies, and how to protect ourselves from it.

But we also need more people helping and taking charge, together, as communities, because we are very invested in keeping PeerTube ecosystem healthy.

🎉 PeerTube v5 is now available 🎉.

For this occasion, we have published a blog post summing up a year of hard work and improvements on the PeerTube ecosystem.

It also presents the new features of PeerTube v5, and what we feel we might work on next year.

• Learn all about those empowering new features on our blog;
• See the code of the V5 by yourself;
• Publish your ideas for PeerTube V6 on Let’s Improve PeerTube (and vote for the ones you’re excited about)
• Support PeerTube by supporting Framasoft, and find out about all our actions.

We would like to thank every person who has contributed to the PeerTube ecosystem throughout the year: y'all are amazing! This year, some features have been directly funded by PeerTube-supporting organizations (see our blogpost). Put together, their contributions represent a small half of our annual budget dedicated to PeerTube (which we estimate at 70 000 €). The other part comes from Framasoft’s budget, i.e. from the donations that our non profit receives from its mainly French-speaking community. To us, it seems almost unfair that it is mainly French speakers who finance a tool that has a truly international scope… So we need your help. Spread the word about our donation campaign around you, especially outside the French-speaking world.

If you want to help us fund our work in 2023 on PeerTube v6 and many other projects, please consider supporting Framasoft, share the address support.framasoft.org on your PeerTube platforms, in your communities that benefit from this alternative.

We hope you will enjoy PeerTube v5,
Framasoft

Hello,

First of all, PeerTube v5 is on its way, as we have just published a release candidate version that will be tested out in the next few weeks. We can't wait to present you the improvements and new features!

In the meantime, we have just published a brand new redesign of JoinPeerTube. It took a lot of work to simplify this website. Our intention is to make it a welcoming tool, a kind of gateway into the PeerTube universe for everyone, especially for non-tech savvy people.

• Get a tour of this new JoinPeerTube (backstage infos included) on our blog;
• Visit the brand new JoinPeertube.org (and share it around you!);
• Support PeerTube by supporting Framasoft (that's us!), and all our actions.

We really hope this new website will help content creators and content enjoyers get a better grip on what PeerTube is and is not, and how to get started.

We, at Framasoft, are a small French non-profit that is exclusively funded by donations (87% of our budget being grassroots donations). We don't really know how to PR and market, especially in English. So most of our funding (that finances PeerTube's development, among other things) comes from the French-speaking audience.

Today, we have reached 27% of our 2022 donation campaign goals. We need you to help us spread the word in the non-French-speaking community that all our projects need support! If you want to help us fund PeerTube and many other projects in 2023, please consider supporting Framasoft.

We hope you will enjoy and share this new Joinpeertube.org,
Framasoft

Hi everybody,

We are pleased to announce this new version of PeerTube!

Ability to automatically import videos from a remote channel, UI improvements, more instance customization and much more... Let's look around and see what it brings us!
PeerTube v4.3 is out!

Automatic import of videos from a remote channel

This is THE feature you've been waiting for: ability to automatically import all videos from a remote channel (from another video platform) into one of your PeerTube channels. Really useful if you are a video maker publishing on several platforms who wants to make your channels visible on PeerTube. You can also use this feature to group videos from several remote channels in the same channel. A special thank to Florent, one of Skeptikón PeerTube Instance administrators, for developing this new feature.

To add a remote channel synchronization, simply click on the button Add synchronization located in My library menu / Channels tab / My synchronizations button and add the requested information:

• Remote channel URL: copy the channel's URL you want to import
• Video Channel: choose from the drop-down menu the channel you wish to synchronize with

Once this synchronization is created, PeerTube will watch the remote channel for new publications and will automatically import new videos into your channel.

You can also use this synchronization tool to import content from a remote playlist.

PeerTube UI improvements

In order to make PeerTube User Interface even more user-friendly, we are working with a designer from la Coopérative des Internets and have implemented some of her suggestions in this release.

We have reviewed the account creation page process to make some of the information you need to know before registering more explicit:

1. we explain why creating an account
2. we display instance terms and invite you to accept them
3. you are asked to fill the elements necessary to create your account with some explanations
4. you are asked to create your first channel (but you can skip this step)
5. your account is created

We also changed the location of the login page's elements to place the information message at the top.
To make it more visible, the search bar is now at the top center of each page.
Finally, we have increased the size and lightened the color of the default font to make it more accessible. These small changes will make PeerTube more comfortable for you to use.

Better integration of videos and live streams

As you probably know, it is possible to embed a PeerTube video player in other websites (by copying a small html code that you get by clicking on the Share button / Embed tab). Practical, isn't it?

Until now, we had a small display issue when embedding live videos: before and after the live schedule, the embedded player did not display anything and gave the impression that it was not working. To remedy this, we have added informative texts displayed before the start of live event (This live has not started yet) and once it has ended (This live has ended).

We have also added automatic playback to the embedded videos when the live broadcast starts. It is no longer necessary to refresh the web page regularly. Please note that some browsers are set by default to block automatic video playback and you will have to change your settings to benefit from this new feature.

More instances customizations

We improved PeerTube admin management. As an administrator, you can now:

• execute batch actions on federated instances
  Performing batch actions (selecting several items in order to apply to all of them the same treatment) was already available for the Overview tab pages (users, videos and comments). It is now available for the Federation tab pages. Very useful to delete several subscriptions at the same time or to reject some followers.

• disable transcoding of uploaded video or live stream original resolution
  As an instance's administrator, you can set the resolutions in which uploaded videos are transcoded. Until now, PeerTube always transcoded the original video file, even if its resolution was not enabled. This can be cumbersome for some instances. It is now possible to disable the original video transcoding when its resolution is higher than the maximum resolution set. To do this, go to the Administration menu, Configuration tab, then VOD Transcoding and check the box in front of the text Always transcode original resolution.

• delete a specific video file
  Storing multiple versions of a video can quickly increase your instance used disk space. You can now delete specific files from the web interface. This can be very useful if, for example, you want to delete all video files that are bigger than the resolution you have enabled for your instance.

And also

PeerTube supports 2 new languages: Toki Pona and Croatian!

We have also made several optimizations to make the software more scalable. As a result, its performance has been greatly improved.

There are many other improvements in this version. You can read the whole list on https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md.

Finally, we would like to remind you that we launched in July a feedback tool to collect your needs on PeerTube. We want to know what content creators, video-lovers and non-tech-savvy people miss from PeerTube or what changes/new experiences they would like to have. We invite you to have your say at Let's improve PeerTube!. And if you are not necessarily inspired, you can always vote for one of the 80 ideas already posted. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who made these proposals and all those who voted.

Thanks to all PeerTube contributors!
Framasoft

Bonjour everyone!

We need your help to share and contribute to a new feedback tool: Ideas.joinpeertube.org.

Five years of building the ecosystem of PeerTube

By the end of 2022, PeerTube will be five years in the making! In the last four years, with only one (not even full time!) paid developer, we got:

• From a POC to a fully operative federated video platform with p2p broadcasting, complete with subtitles, redundancy, video import, search tools and localization (PeerTube v1, oct. 2018)
• Notifications, playlists, a plugin system, moderation tools, federation tools, a better video player, a presentation website and an instances index (PeerTube v2, nov. 2019)
• Federated research tool (and a search engine), more moderation tools, lots of code improvement, UX revamping, and last but not least: p2p livestream (PeerTube v3, jan. 2021)
• Improved transcoding, channels and instances homepage customization, improved research, an even better video player, filtering videos on pages, advance administration and moderation tools, new video management tool, and a big code cleaning session (PeerTube v4, dec. 2021)

All of this, in 4 years, with only one employed developer, and financed through donations (please consider supporting us at Framasoft!).

This year has already brought many improvements, and we know what we want to do for the v5 by the end of 2022, but... what next?

Ideas for PeerTube: let's get non-tech-savvy people's feedback

Until now, developers, admins and tech-savvy people could suggest improvements and new features for PeerTube by publishing and commenting issues in the git repository.

Nowadays, PeerTube is gaining momentum and users. It is getting out of the "experts" bubble, and that's a great opportunity. So we need to know what content creators, video-lovers and non-tech-savvy people miss from PeerTube, what changes or new experiences they would like to get.

We need more diverse feedback, so we want to propose a user-friendly feedback tool:

Here is our feedback tool: Ideas.Joinpeertube.org.

• If you know what would improve your PeerTube experience, please add an idea.
• If you see anything in there that catches your eye, please vote for it.
• If you know people who would like more from PeerTube, please share this feedback tool.

We're but a small non-profit

We had to compromise: Ideas.Joinpeertube.org will only be in English, as we don't have enough humans, talents and energy to maintain a multi-languages feedback tool.

Because at Framasoft (that's the name of our association!), we still are a small French non-profit (10 employees, 36 members) funded through donations. PeerTube is one of our 50+ projects (yes, it's a big one, but still one among many).

We need to collect feedback not only for ourselves, but for everyone who would like to contribute to PeerTube ecosystem (core code, plugins, documentation, indexes, moderation lists, etc.).

By displaying to the world what the PeerTube community wants from PeerTube, we will be able (late 2022 - early 2023) to choose what to add to the roadmap for v6, as long as it's within what we are able and willing to do.

But we also hope that other parties will be interested in contributing to PeerTube by developing awaited and upvoted ideas.

Contribute and share!

Now this tool is in your hands. We trust you will contribute by sharing ideas to improve PeerTube, voting for the ideas you like and sharing this tool to concerned people around you.

As we don't have (and can't afford, and don't want) big marketing tools and communication campaigns, the success of this tool (and of PeerTube) lays exclusively in your hands. We know those are capable hands.

Thanks to all in advance for sharing and caring,
Framasoft

Hi everybody,

We are pleased to announce this new version of PeerTube!

Editing videos from the web interface, detailed viewers stats for videos, ability to adjust latency during a live broadcast and much more... Let's look around and see what it brings us!

Editing videos from PeerTube web interface

This new feature will delight upstarting videomakers! Until now, there was no options for video editing on PeerTube: videomakers had to edit their videos before publishing them. Now, if you need to do some basic editing, you can do it directly in the web interface.

Once you have uploaded your original video, simply click on the ... menu and select Studio. You can then choose to :

• cut the video (by specifying a new start and/or new end time-code)
• add an intro at the beginning and/or an outro at the end of the video (by uploading a video file)
• add a watermark to the top right corner of the video (by uploading an image)

Once you made these changes, PeerTube will automatically transcode the new video and replace the original one.

This feature has been developed with the financial support of the "Direction du numérique pour l'Éducation du Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, de la Jeunesse et des Sports" (french Ministry of National Education). It was a request from the team in charge of the apps.education.fr platform, which offers remote working tools to French employees and teachers. Thanks to them!

Stats on videos

Until now, PeerTube offered very few metrics for videos: just a view and a like counter. This 4.2 version provides new metrics for each video:

• average and total watch time
• peak viewers
• number of viewers' origin countries

To access the stats page, click on ... button located under the video player (on the right) and select Stats.

In addition to these counters, PeerTube allows you to view the following data through interactive graphs:

• total viewers
• aggregated watch time
• viewers by country (if the instance's admin have not disabled this option)
• audience retention (to identify the moments in your videos that captured the audience's attention)

This feature has been developed with the financial support of HowlRound Theatre Commons at Emerson College. Thanks to them!

Save replay of permanent/recurring live streaming sessions

As you probably already know, PeerTube offers 2 ways to broadcast a live:

• "normal" live: where you can stream only once
• permanent/recurring live: where you can stream multiples times using the same URL

Until now, only the "normal" live allowed to publish a replay of the livestream. When using permanent/recurring live, it was not possible to automatically record replays. You had to use an external tool to record a streaming session and publish it manually in PeerTube, just like any other video.

Now, it is possible to save each permanent/recurring live streaming session as a replay on a new url. Convenient, isn't it? Replays are automatically filled with all permanent/recurring live information for a better indexation.

This feature has also been developed with the financial support of HowlRound Theatre Commons at Emerson College. Thanks to them!

Latency settings support for lives

Currently, when broadcasting live on PeerTube, the latency (time between when the video stream is sent and when the video is watched) is estimated to be around 30-40 seconds. This is because PeerTube uses a peer-to-peer protocol (P2P) to broadcast videos, lowering the load of their hosts.

In order to change this latency, we offer videomakers two new settings:

• reduced latency, by turning off P2P
• increased latency, to exchange more efficiently video segments with P2P

To change this setting, simply edit the live settings. In the Live settings tab, you can select the latency mode you want.

And also

Thanks to an external contribution, it is now very convenient to edit video subtitles directly from the web interface.

PeerTube also allows instances' administrators to display author avatar in video miniatures on the various pages that list videos (Local Videos for example).

We have made many other improvements in this new version. You can read the whole list on https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md.

Thanks to all PeerTube contributors!
Framasoft

Hi everybody,

We invite you to discover the improvements and features of this latest version of PeerTube. Let's look around and see what it brings us...

A video player more practical, especially on mobile devices

To make videos watching more enjoyable, especially on mobile devices, we've improved several parts of the video player. Now, when you tap the center of the player, a button is overlayed and allows you to easily play/pause without using the control bar.

We have increased the control bar size (located at the bottom of the player): so that you can now access more easily the play/pause button and the sound, display or speed settings.

For those who watch videos from a mobile device, we have set up an automatic landscape display of videos when you select full screen view. And if you double-tap on the right or left side of the video player, it allows you to move forward / rewind by 10 seconds without using the control bar. Really handy to easily navigate through a video!

Did you notice that when you press the ? key it brings you up the keyboard shortcuts list? This feature has been around for a while, but we haven't highlighted it before. As we have made some fixes, this is a good opportunity to introduce it to you.

An improved plugin system

The improvements we have made to the plugin system allow developers to create new plugins types:

• plugins to create specific pages integrated into PeerTube interface
  Some instances wishing to add other content than the by-default PeerTube pages will now be able to do so without losing the graphical context of PeerTube interface.

• plugins to add fields to the video updating form
  It was already possible to add new description fields to a video via a plugin, but these were visible only in a specific tab ("Plugin Settings"). It is now possible to make these new fields appear in the "Basic Information" tab, which makes them more visible.

As a reminder, instance administrators can enable / disable plugins in the Administration menu, Plugins/Themes tab and you also can discover our plugins selection.

New filters on search results

Now, when you use the search bar of your favorite instance, you can filter the results so that only one type of result is displayed, choosing from videos, channels or playlists. Very useful to find channels or playlists on a specific topic.

More instances customizations

So that PeerTube instances administrators could customize their instance, we now allow them to:

• specify default privacy type on new uploaded videos
  Until now, the privacy type was "public" for any video added. Admins can now decide that all videos uploaded on their instance will be in unlisted / private / internal privacy by default (your choice). Users could change this default choice.

• specify default licence on new uploaded videos
  Before this version, the license field on uploaded videos was not filled in by default. Admins can now choose a default value for this field and apply it to all new uploaded content. Uploaders will then be able to change this default choice.

• disable some features
  As you were so many to ask for it, it is now possible to disable downloading and/or commenting on all your instance videos.

All these changes are to be made in the instance's configuration file.

About peer-to-peer broadcasting

PeerTube uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol to broadcast highly viewed videos (viral videos), lowering the load of their hosts. From now, instance administrators can disable this feature by default. Users (logged in or anonymous) can however re-enable it if they wish.

You can also disable peer-to-peer when you want to embed a video on external web pages. To do this, simply uncheck the P2P box that appears in the Embed tab of the video sharing window.

And also

We have added a configurable login behaviour: if one or more external authentication plugins are installed on an instance, specific buttons will appear below the login form. If only one external authentication plugin has been installed, the instance administrators can enable an automatic redirection of users to the external authentication platform when they click on the login button.

We have made many other improvements in this new version. You can read the whole list on https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md.

Thanks to all PeerTube contributors!
Framasoft

Hello,

PeerTube v4 is on its way, as we have just published a release candidate version that will be tested out in the next few weeks.

For this occasion, we have published a blog post summing up a year of hard work and improvements on the PeerTube ecosystem. It also presents the new features of PeerTube v4, and what we feel we might work on next year.

• Learn all about those empowering new features on our blog;
• See the code of the release candidate v4 by yourself;
• Support PeerTube by supporting Framasoft, and find out about all our actions.

We would like to thank every person who has contributed to the PeerTube ecosystem throughout the year: y'all are amazing! Our special thanks also goes to NLnet, whose 50 000 € grant funded about two thirds of our 2021 spendings on the PeerTube project. The remaining third came directly from our not-for-profit budget, that comes from grassroots donations (usually from our French audience) we get for all our actions.

If you want to help us fund our work in 2022 on PeerTube and many other projects, please consider supporting Framasoft. And don't forget to share if you care!

We hope you will enjoy PeerTube v4,
Framasoft

A PeerTube spiced up with third-party software is possible! Framasoft has funded and supported two external developments to bring interesting features to live videos. Here is an overview of these two tools, which will bring something new to your live stream.

PeerTube Live App: being live from your smartphone

ℹ️ This app is for content creators who want to broadcast live from a mobile phone.

Why PeerTube Live App?

PeerTube is the free-libre solution to decentralize and share your videos, but... what if you could broadcast live from your mobile phone, whether it's a conference, a concert or a protest? Live streaming on an independent platform, through an easy to use application, didn't exist yet.

This is a new opportunity. Until now, you could only live stream on PeerTube from your computer https://framablog.org/2021/01/07/peertube-v3-its-a-live-a-liiiiive/... which isn't really convenient when you are in the middle of a crowd!

It's a fact: at Framasoft, we didn't have the skills to develop an Android application. So we looked externally and contacted Schoumi, a contributor to Exodus Privacy, who accepted the project. After initial exchanges in April 2020, it was in May 2021 (the covid slowed us down a bit) that the PeerTube Live app started to be developed. After some improvements, we are now ready to show you the tool.

How do I live stream from my smartphone?

First step: you will need an account on a PeerTube instance that allows live streaming (see the instance's terms and conditions). Then download the PeerTube Live application, available on Google Play store and on the F-Droid app store (Note: this application is only available for Android mobiles).

We advise you to configure the application before going live (at the risk of losing some time choosing the settings - be warned!):

• Add the web address of your instance and the login details of your account on the interface
• Click on the "+" at the top right
• Configure the live settings (Title, channel, privacy settings, resolution, publish a replay of not, etc.)
• To go live, all you have to do now is press the big black button
• The same button lets you end the live stream
• If you have chosen to "Automatically publish a replay when your live stream ends", remember to be patient. The publication delay can vary according to the length of the live, the quality/resolution or the computing power of the server hosting your instance

PeerTube Live App needs you!

There are a few important limitations to point out. First of all, we have done very little testing on the app. In short, the paint is fresh, as they say, so bugs may occur.

Secondly, the application is not developed by Framasoft. Its evolution and improvement depend entirely on... you! You want to contribute to the improvement of the application? Here is how to participate:

• Code of the application (for tech-savvy people): https://codeberg.org/Schoumi/PeerTubeLive
• Help with the translation (you don't need to know how to code!): https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/peertube-live/app/
• Support Schoumi, the developer of PeerTube Live: https://en.liberapay.com/Schoumi/

PeerTube Live Chat: give your instance's audience the ability to chat during live streams

ℹ️ PeerTube Live Chat is a plugin for administrators of a PeerTube instance.

Why PeerTubeLive Chat?

More importantly, why didn't we add a chat feature when we developed the live stream feature for PeerTube? Well, it was a 100% conscious choice to focus only on live stream to begin with (we needed to manage priorities).

However, we soon noticed a developer working on a chat feature (and that was really convenient!): John Livingston. So we offered to co-fund the improvement of his code to make it more user-friendly for the general audience.

The project was launched in April 2021. It was essential that the plugin communicate properly with the PeerTube core code, which meant improving the PeerTube plugin API. After much discussions between Chocobozzz (PeerTube developer) and John, the plugin is ready!

How do you install it?

You need to be an administrator of a PeerTube instance to install the plugin on your server, and follow these steps:

• Prosody Server Installation (version 0.11.9 or later). You can refer to the documentation
• Installation of the "livechat" plugin via the PeerTube administration interface
• Choose in the configuration "Prosody server controlled by PeerTube"

The chat will now be displayed during live video broadcasts.

How do you use it?

Once the plugin is installed on the instance, the audience will be able to chat during the live videos they watch. However, this will only be possible from a computer.

If you are logged in to your PeerTube account, you will be recognized directly by the plugin. If you are not logged in, you can simply enter a nickname.

You will then have direct access to the chat and its features. Moderation can be entrusted to one or more people.

It can always be improved!

As the plugin is very young, there is room for improvement:

• Its installation can be tedious, even cumbersome, depending on certain versions of the software
• We have only tested the tool a little, for the moment
• The interface could be more intuitive.

At the time of writing this news, John Livingston has just received a new €4000 sponsorship from the company Code Lutin to continue his work on PeerTube Live Chat. This is great news for this very useful plugin. We look forward to see it grow.

If you want to support this development, too, please go here: https://liberapay.com/JohnLivingston/. End to contribute to the code, it's there: https://github.com/JohnXLivingston/peertube-plugin-livechat.

Contribute to the contributions

These two tools add great value to PeerTube and our freedom to distribute... livestreams! Their improvement now depends on your contributions.

We are increasingly aware of the richness of the PeerTube ecosystem: clients, plugins... Numerous external contributions offer new options and new freedoms to the community: thank you very much!

If we have been able to finance and support these two external developments, it is partly thanks to the NLnet grant we mentioned when announcing the path to v4 of PeerTube, and partly thanks to your donations which finance all the actions of Framasoft https://soutenir.framasoft.org/en/.

Thanks again for your trust!