PeerTube allows anyone to set up their video streaming site. It is a free, self-hosted, and open-source software that can be installed on your server to create a video hosting and sharing platform. In other words, it is like having your personal YouTube at home.
Furthermore, all PeerTube sites can connect to each other, and users having accounts on one can interact with people on the others. All PeerTube servers are interoperable as a federated network, and video load is lowered thanks to P2P (BitTorrent) in the web browser via WebTorrent.
Recently, PeerTube’s developers have finally launched PeerTube 4.2. Let’s have a look at the new features.
PeerTube 4.2 Highlights
The most significant change in this version is the addition of the ability to edit video directly through the web interface.
There were no video editing options on PeerTube till now. As a result, video creators had to modify their videos before publishing them. But now, you may do basic editing straight in the web interface if necessary.
So, after you’ve uploaded your video, go to the “…” menu and select Studio, where you’ll find the video editing options. Once you’ve made these modifications, PeerTube will transcode the new video and replace the old one.
Another exciting change in PeerTube 4.2 is more detailed information about video statistics. Until now, all you could get as information was the number of views and likes for a video. But things have significantly improved in the new version.
Three new metrics, average and total watch time, peak viewers, and the number of viewers’ origin countries, have been added. On top of that, PeerTube 4.2 provides the following statistics via interactive graphs:
- Total viewers
- Aggregated watch time
- Viewers by country
- Audience retention
Apart from those mentioned above, some additional changes deserve to be noted here. Until now, only “regular” live permitted for the publication of a live stream replay. But now is possible to preserve each permanent/recurring live streaming session as a replay on a new address.
Additionally, when broadcasting live on PeerTube, the latency is expected to be approximately 30 seconds. This is because PeerTube broadcasts videos using peer-to-peer technology, reducing the strain on its hosts.
Users have not been able to modify the latency value till now. However, in PeerTube 4.2, you can now set the latency value by picking one of three predefined settings, small latency (~15s), default latency (~30s), and high latency (~60s).
Simply edit the live settings to change the latency mode. You can choose the latency value you wish in the Live settings tab.
You can refer to the official announcement for detailed information about all changes in PeerTube 4.2.
