PeerTube v3.1 is out!
Hi everybody,
After releasing PeerTube v3 in early January, it's time for a new main version with plenty of improvements and new features. Here are some explanations on what this v3.1 brings us.
Better transcoding features
Transcoding? It's the process of converting an audio or video file from one encoding format to another so media files can be visible on different platforms and devices. On PeerTube, we use the FFmpeg program to transcode the videos you upload. You probably have noticed the warning message when you post a video saying "This video is being transcoded, it may not work properly yet". In fact, until transcoding is complete, your video may not be seen from all your devices.
Until now, transcoding rules were the same for every PeerTube instance: you couldn't modify them. From this v3.1, you can create transcoding profiles by installing plugins on instances. Instance administrators can select a transcoding profile adapted to their needs after installing a plugin. We hope many of them will create such plugins to customize their FFmpeg settings.
For example, you can now create a specific transcoding profile that highlights live videos (over other videos) in terms of bandwidth. In addition, the administrator of a PeerTube instance specialized in broadcasting musical contents will be happy to know he can create a high quality audio profile.
This v3.1 also changes the way transcoding tasks are managed. Before, and for each instance, transcoding occured chronologically as users were uploading videos. Thus when a video maker was uploading several videos in a row, he prevented video transcoding from other users of the instance. Therefore we have modified the priority management system for these transcoding jobs so that when a user upload several files at the same time, the transcoding of some of his videos is de-prioritized (they are on standby) if another user upload a file. In other words, administrators can give an higher priority to optimize jobs and can decrease priority of transcoding jobs depending on the amount of videos uploaded by the user in the last 7 days. This prevents one single user from blocking other people's contents' uplaods: it's more fair. Besides, administrators can now see the progress of video transcoding in the list of on-going jobs on their instance.
Finally, instance administrators can now choose how many simultaneous transcoding jobs they support. Of course, transcoding several videos at once requires an important computing power. If you want to allow the transcoding of more than one video at once on your instance, make sure you have the proper hardware.
More and more pleasant interfaces
As we know that PeerTube interface is not always easy to understand, we still improve it so that everyone feels comfortable using this tool.
The disappearance of the "most liked" category, in the left menu, is the most visible change. In return, we added to the "trending" category 3 options for sorting videos:
- hot: a selection of recent videos with the most interactions
- views: videos with the most views in the last 24 hours
- likes: the most liked videos
We have modified some elements in the Administration menu (available for instance administrators only). For example in the "users" tab, the "Create user" button is now on the left side to be more visible. Also administrators can now customize the value of video quota (total and daily) of each user.
And also:
You can now easily subscribe to an account hosted on a different instance from the one you have registered on (remote account) by clicking on the "subscribe" button under a video and then by entering your PeerTube ID (username@domain).
Instance administrators can now choose how many simultaneous import jobs they support (whether these imports are realized through a URL or a torrent). This prevents big instances from having long waiting lists.
Finally, we have also implemented a system of async torrent creation on video upload in order to fix some upload errors bugs.
We have made many other improvements in this new version. You can read the whole list (in English) on https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md.
{{ $gettext('Thanks to all PeerTube contributors!') }}
Framasoft