Peertube

Background and Rationale

YouTube's Play Button awards are physical trophies given to creators when they reach significant subscriber milestones, such as 100,000 (Silver), 1 million (Gold), and 10 million (Diamond) subscribers.

These awards have become an iconic part of YouTube's creator culture, serving as both recognition and motivation for content creators.

PeerTube, as a decentralized, open-source alternative to YouTube, currently does not have an equivalent system for recognizing creator achievements at a network-wide level.

Given PeerTube’s federated structure—where each instance is independently managed—implementing a similar recognition system would need to be thoughtfully adapted to fit its unique, decentralized model.

Proposal: Federated Creator Milestone Badges

• Digital Badges: Instead of physical trophies, PeerTube could introduce digital milestone badges that appear on creators’ channel pages and video overlays. These badges could be awarded for reaching certain numbers of subscribers, video views, or other engagement metrics.
• Instance-Level and Network-Level Recognition: Since PeerTube is federated, badges could be awarded both at the instance level (e.g., 1,000 subscribers on a specific instance) and, optionally, at the federated network level (e.g., 10,000 followers across all federated instances).
• Customizable by Instance Admins: Instance administrators could define their own milestone thresholds and badge designs, aligning with PeerTube’s ethos of customization and community control.
• Open-Source Badge Plugin: The badge system could be implemented as an official/Fan-made PeerTube plugin, allowing easy adoption and further customization by the community.
• Optional Physical Awards: For larger, community-driven instances, there could be an option for admins or community groups to crowdfund and send physical awards to creators, if desired.

Potential Benefits

• Boosts creator motivation and engagement, fostering a sense of achievement and community recognition.
• Encourages creators to grow their audience and contribute more content.
• Promotes healthy competition and collaboration between instances.
• Reinforces PeerTube’s commitment to supporting creators in a decentralized, privacy-respecting way.

Implementation Considerations

• Ensure privacy: Participation in the badge system should be opt-in, respecting creators who prefer anonymity.
• Prevent abuse: Badges should be resistant to manipulation (e.g., bot-generated subscribers).
• Federation logic: For network-level badges, develop a protocol for aggregating metrics across instances while maintaining decentralization.

Conclusion

Introducing a federated, customizable creator milestone badge system would bring the motivational benefits of YouTube's Play Button to PeerTube, while respecting its decentralized, open-source ethos and giving communities the flexibility to define their own standards for recognition.

so I spent last several days making collecting watch time on both videos and livestreams more robust and work across multiple peertube instances, im sure it still has gaps in the structure so that jenk data can get in.

if you want to try it heres the link https://github.com/solidheron/peertube_recomendation_algorythm/ btw its a browser extension

so now I got two parts left that I know of first being creating the user_recomendation_vector and the function that gets recommendation based on that vector. I settle on cosine similarity vector since its easy to implement and can be run in browser with only data collected by the user device, and doesnt requires sharing outside of peertube api. user_recomendation_vector should have two part AOLR: (algorithm of last resort) which will be the words in the title, tags, and description tokenized with an float value and recomended_standard: which will be based on what category either programs or people decide a video belongs to along with an associated float value to make it a vector.

I do have issues with deciding if engagement is important, if short video should have multiplier if they're completed, how much is a like worth, how important is it to get an end of the video.

I should add that I have made complimentary video_description_vector thats store in browser all vector dimentions are 1.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28252147

Fedicast / Podcast: https://audio.firesidefedi.live/@firesidefedi/episodes/dansup-pixelfed-loops-sup-etc

working on peertube recommendation algorithm has made me realize that we should be collecting our own data.

my program that monitors peertube watching habit and stores it locally and should track YouTube watching habit just so that data can be used in a recommendation algorithm. it would be a good idea for fediverse if there were programs that monitors and stores the data locally for the fediverse and corporate counterpart.

the reason why I would track youtube data was to get the titles of the video

I made a browser extension that track the video you watch on a peertube instance linked here https://github.com/solidheron/peertube_recomendation_algorythm

it works decently well but it still has some glitches and a bug that causes minor information loss that will need to be patched out. so this is in alpha and needs to be worked on. I do have another script that gets the data of a hundreds of peertube videos and the closed captions. so got some basic components of an algorithm started. next ill probably figure out how to categorize videos based on peertube api and closed captions.

It's weird knowing someone will improve on this at some point

bellow is the data structure of the browser extension. I did watch videos to get that data and all of this will be stored locally. I recommend looking at it with https://jsonformatter.org/json-viewer . leave a comment/suggestion, I'm up for any submissions.

[{"title":"The Blues Brothers (1980) - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/56ozwq8eomr2eNymWiMcLK","currentTime":131.072663,"duration":8209.360000000015,"percentWatched":1.46,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T02:46:37.218Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":5.200358,"end":45.190443,"seg_duration":39.990085,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T02:44:31.217Z"},{"start":48.475819,"end":128.483879,"seg_duration":80.00806,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T02:46:37.218Z"}]},"sessionStart":48.475819,"finished":false},{"title":"R.E.P.O. - ...do you also hear boss music? - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/aQmz8pyKM6fLKZtYCzNGf7","currentTime":265.658139,"duration":419.099996,"percentWatched":26.64,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T02:52:39.226Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":0,"end":57.671082,"seg_duration":57.671082,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T02:47:49.217Z"},{"start":83.927695,"end":87.916426,"seg_duration":3.9887310000000014,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T02:49:45.218Z"},{"start":215.192046,"end":265.193005,"seg_duration":50.00095900000002,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T02:52:39.226Z"}]},"sessionStart":215.192046,"finished":false},{"title":"Tesla Vandals & Uncontacted Tribes: 5CAST with Andrew Callaghan (#2) w/ Joel Lava & Anticar Activist - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/8etzRokpLKKCKVyaffpscn","currentTime":324.723803,"duration":6737.166660999999,"percentWatched":2.17,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T04:02:17.237Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":1.210278,"end":147.218129,"seg_duration":146.00785100000002,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T04:00:17.237Z"}]},"sessionStart":1.210278,"finished":false},{"title":"CHICKEN JOCKEY - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/9RLSpB9X74kNipex9gCBQf","currentTime":18.999999,"duration":18.999999,"percentWatched":91.49,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T04:03:15.239Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":0,"end":17.383907,"seg_duration":17.383907,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T04:03:15.239Z"}]},"sessionStart":0,"finished":true},{"title":"Reddit is garbage and their stock proves it - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/vpjkuvD1Phm4GvGtDkKWJx","currentTime":371.271227,"duration":376.566666,"percentWatched":2.66,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T04:05:17.239Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":359.374113,"end":369.374488,"seg_duration":10.000374999999963,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T04:05:17.239Z"}]},"sessionStart":359.374113,"finished":true},{"title":"Trump SAVES the Economy (from himself) - TechNewsDay - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/wDdgqKZtaErZPf2StfYxqb","currentTime":22.353169,"duration":2697.799999,"percentWatched":0,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T04:05:53.238Z","session":{"segments":[]},"sessionStart":null,"finished":false},{"title":""Fully A.I." Lawyer Shuts Down During Court & Weezer Shooting?! - News Dump - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/uTw4ktcZ14rLeGb4ZGjP4m","currentTime":232.988303,"duration":3143.500004,"percentWatched":5.85,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T04:09:17.238Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":2.144733,"end":12.144229,"seg_duration":9.999495999999999,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T04:06:21.238Z"},{"start":58.472636,"end":232.472428,"seg_duration":173.999792,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T04:09:17.238Z"}]},"sessionStart":58.472636,"finished":false},{"title":"Mantras - Mentalism (Full Album 2025) - Dalek Zone","url":"https://dalek.zone/w/gwcHVcg2m2A2LYoFaciUQw","currentTime":27.119449,"duration":2655,"percentWatched":0.83,"liked":false,"disliked":false,"last_update":"2025-04-14T04:17:10.613Z","session":{"segments":[{"start":4.210964,"end":26.199443,"seg_duration":21.988478999999998,"timestamp":"2025-04-14T04:17:10.613Z"}]},"sessionStart":4.210964,"finished":false}]

Little update on making a peertube recommendation algorithm. I made a script that collects video json and closed caption from instances. Later on I'll figure out a way to organize the data into video description vector. (Data manipulation will be ever improving process but data collecting should be stagnant and only change with activityhub and peertube updates)

My question is if there's a program that monitors or gets a users video watch time and interaction data and stores it locally. I just need something to record my video interactions of peertube videos such as like or dislike a video.

writing down my thoughts for added elements called Video_description_vector and Video_description_vector_history. Video_description_vector is an element that an instance gives to describe what categories a video does and does not belong to and Video_description_vector_history is record of user submissions of what categories they say a video belongs to so that way categories can be removed.

Video_description_vector has sub elements that are format standards, this is done so that so that future potentially better format can be entered into Video_description_vector . I'm working on my recommended standard, so far I have isTrue array that lists what categories the video belongs to, while the isFalse element lists what categories it does not belong to—subjectively. done that way so that isn't a sea of element like "cartoon":True or "action":False . I do know that I need sub-element for music metrics

Below is a made-up example. It’s about the Cleveland Browns, an American football team, doing a fundraiser for charity. Categories like “football” or “sports” are excluded because the Browns are not actually playing football or engaging in sports in the video. { "Video_description_vector": { "recommended_standard": { "isTrue": ["Browns", "Charity", "Cleveland", "ALS", "fundraiser"], "isFalse": ["Sports", "football", "Cincinnati"] }, "future_standard": { "doesnt": { "subarray": { "example": "no" }, "exist": ["Sports", "football", "Cincinnati"] } } }, "Video_description_vector_history": [ { "name": "vidchase", "host": "videovortex.tv", "submitted_date": "11/15/2020", "uuid": "this and everything above can be removed if inside a video.json", "recommended_standard": { "isTrue": ["Browns", "Charity", "Cleveland"], "isFalse": ["Sports", "football", "Cincinnati"] } }, { "name": "composite", "host": "combined.instance", "submitted_date": "4/15/2024", "uuid": "this and everything above can be removed if inside a video.json", "recommended_standard": { "isTrue": ["fundraiser", "Charity", "ALS"] } }, { "name": "Troll", "host": "wrong.info", "submitted_date": "6/9/0420", "uuid": "example", "recommended_standard": { "isTrue": ["sack", "ballz"] } }, { "name": "GoodFaith_but_wrong", "host": "other.instance", "submitted_date": "1/14/2023", "uuid": "example", "recommended_standard": { "isTrue": ["Browns", "NFL", "football"] } } ] }

So I started by doing research and by research I mean watching two videos on YouTube about basic recommendation algorithms.

I did watch a 30 minute video on Netflix software engineer talking about using machine learning and complex matrix and these bandit style machine learning algorithms to recommend TV shows/movies really the base conclusion is that there's a 50% improve over doing all these complex things over their baseline measurement. Baseline will mean traditional pre neral network based algorithms.

The way I interpret it is that basics take you a long way and all the basics are is just organizing any peertube video into a vector and people watching into a vector as well. The idea would be that which videos are more similar to each other would be good recommendations if a watcher watch one of those videos, or if they didn't like it don't recommend any videos similar to that. Once these videos get vectorized then the watcher's vector can be updated in a basic way more watch time mean its more of what they want and a like would give it a boost, or comment could boost multiplier.

I'd say that the watcher's vector can be stored locally while videos vector is public. It will be a while to figure out a function/algorithm to adapt to watcher. Does the watcher taste change, do they multiple things , should the algorithm adapt fast or slow as new videos come in, novelty/consistency. I don't expect this problem to be solved anytime soon , but the recommendation algorithm will simply evolve and split as to have their own unique benefits and drawbacks.

To start foundation is to start a standard for video vector. Video can be quantified and qualified. There's only a few measurable quantities like video length and existing views. Qualitative attribute of videos like "is it a cooking tutorial, "is it a sports commentary ", or "is it a Livestream VOD" are going to require that the vector be stored in a format that can adapt to the expanding number of dimensions the quality a peertube video can have. Next issue is measure qualities to an actual number is something sports related or sports adjacent would a 1 mean yes or would a 0 mean neutral/agnostic or no.

The last simplist issue would be communicated the algorithm that updates the watcher's vector since that can be done via updates from peertube server or GitHub

I hate how if you search trans on peertube (at least on .wtf) it’s straight up porn, like I’m tryna find relatable content, not wank off (update, so porn is against peertube.wtf’s rules so I went through and reported them)

"The Fediverse has its own full-fledged YouTube alternative that possesses some unique superpowers thanks to ActivityPub. In the previous article in this series I covered what it’s like to use PeerTube from the point of view of a casual user:

Today’s post will discuss: how to use the software as a video creator – and its advantages over video hosting platforms by Big Tech companies."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27001400

PeerTube is a decentralized and federated alternative to YouTube. The goal of PeerTube is not to replace YouTube but to offer a viable alternative using the strength of ActivityPub and P2P protocols.

Being built on ActivityPub means PeerTube is able to be part of a bigger social network, the Fediverse (the Federated Universe). On the other hand, P2P technologies help PeerTube to solve the issue of money, inbound with all streaming platform: With PeerTube, you don't need to have a lot of bandwidth available on your server to host a PeerTube platform because all users (which didn't disable the feature) watching a video on PeerTube will be able to share this same video to other viewers.

If you are curious about PeerTube, I can't recommend you enough to check the official website to learn more about the project. If after that you want to try to use PeerTube as a content creator, you can try to find a platform available there to register or host yourself your own PeerTube platform on your own server.

The development of PeerTube is actually sponsored by Framasoft, a french non-for-profit popular educational organization, a group of friends convinced that an emancipating digital world is possible, convinced that it will arise through actual actions on real world and online with and for you!

If you want to contribute to PeerTube, feel free to:

• report bugs and give your feedback on Github or on our forums
• submit your brillant ideas on our Feedback platform
• Help to translate the software, following the contributing guide
• Make a donation to help to pay bills inbound in the development of PeerTube.

I just downloaded peertube but can't get past the welcome screen as it goes longer than my screen and I can't scroll down. I'm on an S25 if that helps.

Hey, @SLURF, ik vroeg me zo af, gaat er ook een SURF @peertube server komen?

What would the best instance be? I’m thinking there’s probably an instance that focuses on musicians and other artists. The store is alt rock, if it matters. Thanks in advance!

I noticed if I change the Original Publication Date on my videos it affects their position in the Recently Added list

https://spectra.video/videos/browse?scope=local&live=false&c=true&s=3

I feel like it should only affect the sort by "Original Publication Date" which is a separate feature

https://spectra.video/videos/browse?sort=-originallyPublishedAt&c=true&s=2

I feel kinda dumb, but how do I sign into my #PeerTube account on the official #app?

@peertube@framapiaf.org
@peertube@mastodon.uno
@peertube@lemmy.ml

Currently, there's an official PeerTube app, but I have been wondering if they should instead potentially consider an alternative strategy similar to what Lemmy has done.

The proposal is this:

Instead of maintaining an official PeerTube app, what if PeerTube focused instead on being the core system and API, while encouraging third-party developers to create various client apps?

PeerTube could then concentrate on managing and improving the web app, api, etc.

Potential benefits of this approach:

1. Diverse ecosystem of apps catering to different user preferences
2. Reduced workload for the core PeerTube team
3. Increased community involvement and innovation

Potential drawbacks:

1. Lack of a "standard" mobile experience
2. Possible fragmentation of the user base
3. Quality control challenges

What are your thoughts on this idea? Would this approach better serve the PeerTube community and align with the project's goals? How might this impact PeerTube's growth and adoption?

Suggestion Overview:

PeerTube could potentially host and maintain an official, beginner-friendly server, similar in purpose to Mastodon.Social for Mastodon, or Lemmy.World for Lemmy.

Perhaps call it something like Peertube.Video, or something similar.

This server could function as an easy onboarding point for new users, enabling them to sign up and immediately start exploring videos without the need to understand or manage federated server distinctions.

This server could provide an experience akin to YouTube, where users can browse, search, and watch videos from both the local server and federated servers seamlessly.

By simplifying the experience, this initiative could help make PeerTube more appealing to mainstream audiences and lower the barrier to entry.

__

Features and Benefits

1. Centralized Onboarding for New Users

• Provide a trusted, official PeerTube instance that's beginner-friendly.
• Serve as a default place where individuals can sign up without having to research or choose from numerous third-party servers (which can be confusing).

2. Discoverability of Videos Across Federated Servers

• Users could watch and search for videos from the official server as well as from federated PeerTube instances without needing to understand server distinctions.
• Implement a streamlined user interface for easy video discovery, resembling YouTube’s intuitive navigation.

3. Support for Technologically Less Savvy Audiences

• Many users, particularly older individuals or those unfamiliar with decentralized platforms, could benefit from a simplified entry point.
• Reduce complexity by hiding the technical aspects of federation for these users while still allowing advanced users to explore federated options if desired.

4. Expand PeerTube’s Reach and Adoption

• By offering an official, centralized entry point, PeerTube could attract more users who otherwise might find the platform intimidating or confusing.
• This initiative could serve as a showcase for PeerTube, demonstrating the power of federated video sharing to a broader audience.

5. Potential Revenue and Sustainability

• The official server could offer optional donations or crowdfunding to cover hosting costs, similar to Mastodon.Social.

Addressing Concerns

1. Maintaining Decentralization Values

• While offering a centralized starting point, the server would remain federated and open, encouraging users to explore other PeerTube instances if they wish.
• This server would not undermine the decentralized nature of PeerTube but rather serve as a gateway to the broader federated ecosystem.

2. Balancing Resources

• To reduce strain, the server’s video hosting capacity could focus on curated or user-uploaded content while still federating videos from other servers for a comprehensive experience.
• Encourage other PeerTube server admins to adopt a similar model to distribute the load.

Closing Thoughts

This initiative could help make PeerTube more accessible while staying true to the values of decentralization. Creating an official, beginner-friendly PeerTube server would not only improve user adoption but also demonstrate PeerTube’s capacity to deliver a federated video-sharing experience that rivals mainstream platforms.

First of all, let me apologize to those people who was affected when PeerTube.wtf initially went down.

I've been working this past month on building and setting up a fresh version of PeerTube.wtf and this time, I won't be relying on decentralized storage 🙃 🙃 🙃

I've been reading a couple of threads on Lemmy, to better understand what people want expect to be able to do on a PeerTube server, so here goes:

• PeerTube.wtf is a platform for general use. Every topic is welcome.

• The Global Search Index is enabled. This means that the search bar will show results from almost 900 PeerTube servers.

• Remote URI/handle search is enabled. This means, if you know the URL/handle of a channel, that's not part of the Global Search Index, you can still find it via the search bar and subscribe to the channel.

• The Public Index is enabled. This means that PeerTube.wtf will federate with almost a 1000 PeerTube servers.

• Audio-only, 360p, 720p, 1080p and 1440p is enabled. This means that videos uploaded, is provided in these resolutions.

• Video transcription is enabled. Will Automatically create subtitles for uploaded/imported VOD videos.

• Live streaming is enabled. Streams are transcoded in 720p and 1080p at 60 FPS.

• A user has 100GB of storage. This is obviously not sustainable, but is subject to change.

FAQ

.wtf?

Yea, it stands for "What The Fediverse". What else could it possibly stand for, that sound as cool?

Where is the server hosted?

It's hosted in Denmark, at my residence. I have 100% ownership and control over it.

What's your specs, bro? The server is assembled inside an Inter-Tech 2U-2404S, with a:

• AMD Ryzen 3 1200 @ 4 cores
• 16GB of RAM
• nVidia Quadro P600 (hardware transcoding)
• 2x120GB SSDs in raid 1 for OS
• 2x4TB HDDs in raid 1 for the video storage

4TB of storage ain't much

That's true, but I will be upgrading the disks eventually.

Why no 4K??

4K takes a lot of space and the majority of users don't have a 4K monitor. In the future, it might change.

I've probably forgotten something, but yea.. Enjoy.

I feel as if the requests for instances hasn't been very productive, so I'd like to ask the community; are there any specific Peertube channels or videos that you've found interesting or worth someone's attention?

I have videos uploaded to a fairly popular and free instance. They've been there for a few weeks, but I can't find them when I search for them at sepiasearch.org.

Does anyone know what could be causing this?

Update:

I have added my instance to the joinpeertube list of instances, as advised by @asudox@discuss.tchncs.de. Now my videos show up properly in SS. Thank you!