I saw a few videos shared on PeerTube recently, and created an account on an instance. However, unlike Mastodon and Lemmy I’m struggling to discover channels to subscribe to. When I use the search functions on my instance, most results are either interesting channels which haven’t been updated in years, or random foreign language TV shows and episodes.

Just for example, if I’m trying to find videos on “Gaming” on one of the largest instances, the most recent video is over 1 year ago: https://tilvids.com/search?categoryOneOf=7

Is discoverability on PeerTube bad, or are there barely any active channels?

Edit: BTW one very active creator on PeerTube is https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos and his videos are excellent. But can there really only be a handful of active creators to follow on the whole platform?

  • commander@lemmings.worldEnglish
    30·
    15 days ago

    Both.

    Peertube made this asinine decision to make federating opt-in, so most instances are just places where the owner can jerk themselves off for excluding everything.

    • TeddE@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      15 days ago

      Seems difficult to build it as a social media if it’s inherently unsocial.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        15 days ago

        Who said YOU could say words???

        revokes your right to comment

        We’ll be having none of that interaction, and social stuff here!!!

        …why isn’t peertube taking off???

        (/joke)

      • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        15 days ago

        It’s not unsocial. It’s just not mirroring multi-gigabyte files by default. It’s perfectly social if you use the website.

        Everyone has to stop conflating the technology with the network. Lemmy is a website engine. PeerTube is a website engine. The ability to mirror content is not inherent to running a Lemmy- or PeerTube-based website. The network is not the primary object here.

        It is a construct that arrises from content-mirroring.

        Remember, federation is copying, not creating some kind of remote view. If you’re federating videos, you’re letting other websites consume terabytes of your storage space amd bandwidth.

        • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
          6·
          15 days ago

          Remember, federation is *copying*, not creating some kind of remote view. If you’re federating videos, you’re letting other websites consume terabytes of your storage space amd bandwidth.

          That is not true, at all.

          • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            14 days ago

            It’s literally what federation is. It’s why discovery doesn’t work the way people expect.

            Do you mean to say that PeerTube at least embeds videos? Because that’s news to me, and welcomed news at that

            • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
              1·
              14 days ago

              Yes, video is streamed directly from its home server. There is a an option to mirror videos, so that your server will work as a seed, helping with bandwidth.

              Images on Lemmy is also loaded from its home server, but there is a cache.

        • commander@lemmings.worldEnglish
          3·
          15 days ago

          Remember, federation is copying, not creating some kind of remote view.

          Is this true? It’s my understanding that, lemmy for example, has the protocol in place for servers to communicate their content with each other, but each server’s content is hosted separately.

          Are you saying all federated services copy each other’s data instead of only linking to it?

        • lud@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          15 days ago

          So it’s more useful as a video player than a YouTube replacement?

          • derpgon@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            14 days ago

            Well, it is used mainly to share videos so we don’t have to send them or save them directly to file server. I’d say it has many of the features YT has, so I would say it is possible to replace YT with it, but the problem with videos - as opposed to images or text - is that they take fuckton of space.

    • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      1·
      14 days ago

      Yes and no.

      By default anyone can follow your instance.

      If you want your instance to follow others, you either have to type them in manually or use “auto-follow”, which needs to be enabled manually.

    • farcaster@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      13·
      16 days ago

      Yeah, that must be it. It’s a real shame because the core technology seems to be solid. Streaming 1080p videos from other instances just works. But finding channels to follow seems impossible.

    • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      16 days ago

      Which is silly because most instances will auto mirror your YouTube channel. Literally takes no effort to post to both.

  • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    19·
    16 days ago

    I would not recommend using tilvids.com. They do not federate with anyone and do not have global search enabled, which means search only shows videos from tilvids.com. It is however, possible to follow channels from tilvids.com from other platforms (instances).

    Simply copy the link from tilvids.com and paste it into the search bar of an instance that has global search enabled.

    Platforms can also follow channels directly from tilvids and the videos will show up on said platform.

    Discoverability can be a bit finicky on PeerTube. Especially if you don’t know how to fine tune the filters.

    If you take a look at this list: https://peertube.wtf/home and this one https://lemmy.wtf/post/15810205, you’ll see that there’s plenty of content creators to follow. I discover new ones almost every day.

    There really isn’t any other big content creators on PeerTube, other than The Linux Experiment, but if you wanna see your favorite creator on PeerTube, ask them.

    If you are looking for a platform (instance) to register on, I recommend looking at this list: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115

    • Wxnzxn@lemmy.mlEnglish
      8·
      16 days ago

      I just rejoined PeerTube after I had a quick look years ago, and it’s gotten way better since then, actually. I found out Space Quest Historian is on it, too!

      But yeah, discoverability isn’t good. Lack of an algorithm also makes bingewatching impossible - for better and worse, I guess.

      As you linked them, I’d also recommend peertube.wtf - they even reacted very quickly when I reported a transphobic german conspiracy channel/server.

  • rocky1138@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    16·
    16 days ago

    It’s really just missing a great instance. Most of them look really shady or are not accepting new users.

    • commander@lemmings.worldEnglish
      9·
      15 days ago

      There are no great instances because all federation is opt-in.

      There’s also no general, standard “Peertube affiliated” instance that tries to federate with as many others as possible.

      I think there were just some very poor design decisions made for the platform by people who don’t know what they’re doing.

      Ex: Blurring sensitive videos blurs the title as well, without the option to change it.

      The community doesn’t help because most instances have “request an account” nonsense or literally don’t allow users to upload videos.

      I re-iterate my previous comment: “most instances are just places where the owner can jerk themselves off for excluding everything.”

      There will be great peertube instances, but the culture needs to change first.

      That said, check out https://dalek.zone/. It’s one of the few peertube instances I’ve come across that legitimately seems interested in making it a viable platform. Registrations and uploading new videos don’t require approval, and it federates with way more instances than average.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        15 days ago

        Do we need to start over? Like fork PeerTube and fix all the “We choose to do this wrong because our parents didn’t hug us as children” problems?

        • commander@lemmings.worldEnglish
          1·
          15 days ago

          No, I don’t think it’s anywhere near that bad.

          I just think that going forward, Peertube developers and instance owners should make the platform more accessible and interconnected.

          It’s a bigger responsibility to actually host content instead of just links to content, which I don’t think most peertube instance owners can handle.

    • SuperSleuth@lemm.eeEnglish
      5·
      15 days ago

      Most established hosters would be fearful to run an instance of peertube. Costs could balloon out of nowhere and would only increase with time. There is no way donations would keep up with costs, and charging to watch or a subscription would never take off.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    16·
    16 days ago

    Its growing like crazy. Try the app they just released. It uses some search that works better than instance search

    • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      16 days ago

      I just checked that out and am Fry ng to make a decision but am confused about storage space for users. What do people use peertube storage space for and/or why might I want it?

      • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
        2·
        16 days ago

        Storage is for videos you upload. If you don’t intend to upload video, you should just go for a PeerTube platform (instance/server) that federates with as many other as possible.

  • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    16 days ago

    I couldn’t even get an account on the instance I most wanted because they seem to only give accounts to creators. So now I cannot follow anyone on that instance, or like their videos, or comment. So I have to figure out what other instance I can get an account on and follow from there, hoping they federated with each other.

    • Die4Ever@programming.devEnglish
      3·
      16 days ago

      they seem to only give accounts to creators

      Yea this is a bit silly. It seems like they manually approve user accounts because they need to be careful with the uploads using up their storage. But a way better solution would be to approve users more liberally, and user accounts would be created without a channel so they cannot upload anything, and creating channels needs to be approved. That way people can freely make user accounts for browsing/following, and the admins can still restrict spam channels from being created and uploading videos.

      • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        16 days ago

        Exactly. The way it is structured seems to forget people who watch the videos are an important part of the community.

    • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      2·
      16 days ago

      Which instance was that? Have a look at this list: https://lemmy.wtf/post/15816115

      Even if the instance does not federate with the instance you wanted, you can still type in the link of the channel in the other instance’s search bar.

    • Meldrik@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      4·
      16 days ago

      The PeerTube admin chooses which other platforms they follow. They can also control who can follow them.

  • mesamune@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    16 days ago

    Yeah the search is the worst part. As others have said the technology is there, we just need a better search.

    The other issue is Lemmy (and perhaps other platforms) has issues with Peertube channels. I can’t direct link Peertube for activityhub posts. Lemmy is a no go. !teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me Piefed for example works: https://piefed.social/c/teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me

    I host one and don’t plan on taking it down anytime soon! If anyone likes dog videos: @teddy_the_dog@piped.chrisco.me

    He’s a good boy.

      • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
        3·
        16 days ago

        Yeah it is a major work in progress but discoverability is better and you can use Sepia search from within it.

  • JoYo 🇺🇸@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    16 days ago

    i can’t easily upload from my ipad which is my main video creation device.

    i just post to my personal goto social instance without issue.