I figured this might be more appropriate here than on GitHub. If you disagree, my apologies!
I’ve been experimenting more with PeerTube and PeerTube live-streaming again, and it’s been really awesome; thank you so much! I experienced a minor issue that I read about on GitHub months ago; I temporarily lost connection (happens frequently to me over the years as a full-time streamer), and so I had to create a new Live and reconfigure the streaming key in OBS in order to continue.
The reason that I was using the one-off Live is that I wanted for PeerTube to send a new ActivityPub post when I went live (there’s also an Issue on GitHub related to this, where it was explained that PeerTube ‹ updates › posts, instead, with recurring lives).
I came up with a solution that I should have thought of before: just create a new permanent live every time I start to stream. That way, it generates a new ActivityPub post every time I start – AND, if I lose my connection, I can just continue right to the same Live. Problems solved!
But that got me thinking. What is the advantage of one-off streams? Maybe the UI would be simplified a lot if this feature was just removed? The only advantage I can think of is… maybe you WANT for the stream key to only be useful once, like if you have a guest streamer on your channel? But even then, I can tell you as someone who’s been streaming full-time for seven years: network instability happens. If there’s no way to resume a « single (if broken) stream » to a one-off Live, I feel like it’s pretty risky to use under any circumstance.
Doesn’t it always make more sense to just use recurring Live, even if you make a new one every time? Just my two cents! Thank you for everything.
[EDIT] I just realized that one significant advantage is that the VOD overwrites the same video ID / URL of the livestream, itself, when using a one-off. I can see how some creators would see that as useful. Maybe, if a UI simplification is ever considered, it would make sense for the Recurring Live to be the default, and there could be a toggle in the stream’s settings for ‹ One-Off: VOD replaces Live after disconnection. Interrupted stream cannot be resumed. ›
I think that idea would be better than just leaving the permanent live empty. Maybe the Permanent Live could even be toggled back to waiting for a Live, again? Or it could just have a VOD that it plays until its stream key is connected to, again?
I’m sure that a lot of ideas have already been discussed, including this one, but maybe it would be possible to, like…
Livestream VOD Concatenation
When a Recurring Live ends, set its saved video aside and begin a 20-minute countdown.
If the Recurring Live receives a connection before the countdown ends, don’t process the saved video but begin saving the new video separately.
If the Recurring Live does not receive a connection before the countdown ends, concatenate all of the unprocessed recordings together (as with FFMPEG) and process the concatenated file as the VOD.
The timer could even be configurable at the server level as, like, « Recurring Live Grace Period. »
Show Recent Stream VOD @ Recurring Live URL
Once the VOD is generated, it gets its own separate page.
At the same time, if the Recurring Live page is visited when no stream is live, it also plays that VOD as the ‹ recent live ›. This page could also contain a link to the VOD’s separate permanent URL.
If the Recurring Live goes Live again, the playback of the ‹ recent stream › is interrupted for anyone watching and is replaced by the live stream.
Maybe that’s not something that would be possible at any point in the near future due to how PeerTube is designed. With your permission, I’d like to submit these as two separate ‹ Feature Requests › on the GitHub – but if you think they’re too crazy, I won’t bother.
I’ve been using PeerTube for live streaming, but when I lost connection, I had to restart with a new stream. Switching to recurring Lives solved this. It made me question the need for one-off streams—they seem risky if you can’t resume after a drop. Maybe it’s better to use recurring Lives by default, with an option to replace VODs for those who need it.
I’ve been hoping for some kind of change like this. I want to be able to record recurring streams and allow them to be played immediately after the stream is over. The process of creating (and dispersing) a new link for every stream is not feasible for my organization.
I also like the idea of a « live » stream where a viewer who joins late can watch from the beginning rather than joining already in progress.
