I’m trying to build a sublemmy (BeWowed) based on r/Damnthat’s intresting and r/BeAmazed material that I have accumulated over the years but i need to host all the videos on imgur. Will lemmy be able to host videos? Do you have better alternatives than imgur? Thanks!
I think that the main problem with hosting videos on this platform is the amount of space. Keep in mind, Lemmy runs on donations, it does not have venture capitalist backing of any kind. So even if the support for videos (or gifs) eventually comes, it will either be very restricted (i.e. max 8mb uploads, similar to Discord’s free tier uploads) or disabled entirely by the instance admins because the cost for hosting video will be just way too much.
Time will tell, I guess, for now there’s no video support being mentioned anywhere on GitHub issues, so it is likely not planned.
Posting an embed link shouldn’t be an issue. You don’t have to host the video directly to display it on a website.
<iframe width=“560” height=“315” src=“https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ” title=“YouTube video player” frameborder=“0” allow=“accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” allowfullscreen></iframe>
Lemmy just need to accept embed in comments
At least in kbin, if you link a video on a site that allows embedding it includes a handy little button to show the embedded video automagically. Not sure how it’s handled in Lemmy though. :)
I thought OP refers to uploading videos here directly, obviously embedding should become available soon once someone submits the PR.
Thanks for the in depth reply! Are there better alternatives than imgur?
catbox.moe is great and embeds into Lemmy, unlike redgifs
That’s the answer i was looking for!
So the writing’s on the wall: Imgur will sooner or later intensify its enshitification, so it’s not safe relying on it for image/gif uploads for Lemmy…
It adds a lot of server space and traffic requirements so it’s probably better hosted externally.
I’ve completely forgotten what it is, but I remember reading in a comment a few days ago that there is something meant to replace Youtube in the fediverse. If that’s true, then it might be interesting to add a way to automatically upload videos to that from the lemmy submission page.
PeerTube for video, Pixelfed for images.
Yeah, that - thanks. So maybe in the future, lemmy instances can opt to “federate” (or something like it?) with PeerTube and Pixelfed instances, in the process adding the option to upload directly to them from the lemmy submission page, for an experience similar to uploading a video directly to reddit?
Helps avoid huge server space and network traffic issues for Lemmy, while populating PeerTube with what I assume is much-needed content.
Similar problems occur for PeerTube though - somebody needs to pay server costs, and for video that can be quite heavy. There’s also no commercial concept behind it, so I doubt any instance of PeerTube feels a great need to get flooded with content. Where it really shines (at the moment) is when it is hosted by organizations (such as Blender or the European Union) to share their own content.
However, what’s cool about PeerTube is hinted at in the name: it uses torrent technology, and whenever you’re watching a video you are also seeding it to your peers (others who watch it). So while storage is an issue, bandwidth requirements are smaller than for centralized video services. So who knows what the future will bring. :)
Thanks for the additional context. That is pretty interesting about the bandwidth!
So long as Lemmy succeeds in being successful long-term, in that it can grow significantly, retain users, and maintain a content stream, I do think some sort of solution here is probably inevitable. It’ll be interesting to see if it ends up being PeerTube, self-hosting, or something else entirely.
That would be awesome for embedded links. Comments on the video or pic to be federated back to peertube or pixelfed in their comments to keep the conversation going across services.
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Cool idea!!
PeerTube
I think that many people underestimate what it takes to host videos on the internet.
That being said, isn’t there a federated, distributed video hosting network on the fediverse? Maybe it would be better to just embed links from that.
Well there’s PeerTube, but it’s just like the old YouTube with fewer features. Can’t do Shorts, can’t get embedded iframe plays for now
Does it Play YouTube video or it is another YouTube with it’s own videos? Because i need YouTube but i hate reels shorts and don’t want them
It’s another YouTube with its own. There is also what you need and it’s called Piped. It’s an open-source YouTube video player on which you don’t need Google account
I recommend http://gifer.com/ or YouTube depending on the content.
You can check out how it works on my community !whatcouldgowrong@lemm.ee
That one uses a nasty cookie notice.
I haven’t seen that. What do you mean?
It’s a nasty one because there’s no “reject all” button, it requires manually unchecking all checkboxes instead.
Hmm. Don’t remember getting that notice. Wonder if it’s a regional thing
Here on Kbin, the image upload supports GIFs up to 5MB or so. They get still frame thumbnails, but the user can click on it to see the full-size animated version. I’ve attached Higitus Figitus by R!k! to this comment as an example.
For kbin users, if auto load media is enabled, YouTube videos etc auto load even if they’re just linked in the post or comment.
