Ever wanted to run your video platform free from the clutches of Big Tech?
Well, for many, PeerTube has been a rather fine option thanks to its open-source and self-hostable nature. Developed by Framasoft, the developers have been busy adding new functionality to PeerTube regularly.
Sure, as a decentralized platform, it may not give you the same user experience (or quality) like YouTube. However, it is one of the best decentralized open-source platforms out there.
On that note, they have introduced a new release in the form of PeerTube V6, that promises to deliver quite a few improvements.
Allow me to take you through those.
🆕 PeerTube V6: What's New?
Taking pointers from the feedback they received from users, the PeerTube V6 release is a major version that introduces some of the most requested features from the community.
Some key highlights include:
- Video Chapters
- Video Storyboard
- Replace Uploaded Video
- Password Protection for Video
Video Chapters
You can now add chapters to videos for specifying different sections of a video. This is a very handy little feature that enhances the experience of the viewer, allowing them to see what's in store for a video.
As you can see above, after the chapters are set with their specific titles and time codes, markers will appear to divide the progress bar into different segments.
Video Storyboard
Another feature that has arrived with the V6 release is the ability to preview videos by either hovering on the progress bar or dragging through it.
This is also known as a storyboard feature that is available on most popular video streaming platforms, and now PeerTube also has it.
Replace Uploaded Video
Sometimes mistakes happen, and an incorrectly edited video makes it through to the viewers. Luckily, with PeerTube V6, that is a thing of the past.
Users can now choose to re-upload a video to replace an older one with just a few clicks. When doing so, the URL, title, information, stats, and comments will remain unchanged.
However, this feature has to be enabled by the admin of the PeerTube instance to work. A “Video re-upload” tag will be affixed to the videos that have been replaced.
Password Protection for Video
You can now decide to set a password on videos to restrict access, or to distribute exclusive content.
Admins and developers have more flexibility with PeerTube's in-house REST API, they can set and store as many passwords as they want, making it simpler to give/revoke access to videos.
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🛠️ Other Changes and Improvements
Other than the above-mentioned highlights, here are some betterments worth noting:
- Better remote runner management.
- SEO and video link sharing has been improved.
- Various fixes for accessibility and keyboard navigation.
- The video player has been improved, it no longer gets reloaded and saves the current player settings when playing a new video.
You may go through the official release notes and announcement blog to know more.
📥 Get PeerTube V6
You can head over to the official website to get started with PeerTube V6.
For existing users, you can upgrade your PeerTube installation by following the official documentation.
Seeing how Google is getting more and more aggressive with monetizing their YouTube platform, it is great to see that community-driven platforms like PeerTube are still around.
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💬 PeerTube is becoming a nice YouTube alternative, what do you think?
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