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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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I want to use it but I don't fully understand how it works. Does it use my device a storage for videos? Or does it only use it as a sharing device without storing the video on it? Does it only use the bandwidth on my device? Could someone please explain? I already read about it, but I'm still lost
I've been running my PeerTube instance for more than a year now so hopefully I can help :
Happy to clarify more if you need. Overall you can watch content from https://video.benetou.fr and most likely all bandwidth will come from my server. You can not upload your videos there though (unless if I accept making an account for you, which I won't). There are other servers though, public ones, which allow registration and where you can thus upload your content too.
Thank you. I just want to watch, no more no less and I'm ok with using my bandwidth to push the video around if that helps, since my ISP doesn't have that bullshit cap. And by bandwidth we are talking Internet, right?
i am lighting the beacon
It is part od the Fediverse, so commenting, likes, following, etc. should regarless of what ActivityPub-enabled service you use for interactions (for example can comment from Mastodon account).
The "Peer" part of "PeerTube" means that the video player itself is based on torrent technology. It is not saved on your device (unless you decide to), just when you watch you also send the video to cut off some of the server's bandwidth. Videos are not shared between servers, only the information that they exists, only on uploader's server and between user's devices.
It is not to preserve videos online, for that we have other tools like proper torrents, this is ment to be alternative to YouTube. TLDR Here ActivityPub is for statuses, Torrent is for helping the servers.
So, my device/bandwidth is basically a tunnel so to speak that helps push the video (that is saved on the uploader's server" to others? So peertube only uses my Internet and my device's CPU?
It uses just the same as other video sites plus some upload bandwidth that is usually unused anyway. Also there is an option to download the video purely by HTTP without torrenting if someone wants to.
~~No.~~ [I was wrong. In addition to being distributed between servers like I said, you can also enable P2P sharing to distribute the bandwidth even further.]
If you have a server that allows users to sign up, the stuff they follow/watch (you'd have to look at details if you want to host to see exactly how it's distributed) goes through your server.
The flip side to this is that, when your user uploads an extremely popular video (or you personally do if you don't allow signups), you don't have to stream every video to every individual user. You send it on to other federated instances that those users are signed up to, but if one instance has 100 users view your video, you don't have to send it 100 times. (This is likely less efficient than YouTube, because they can control exactly how load is spread between their delivery network with a comprehensive view of everything, but it dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for an individual to get involved or handle the distribution demand of a popular video.)
~~Just as a client, you don't serve anyone else. It's a website (or app) that works much like YouTube does. It's on the server side where the load is distributed.~~