Tag Archives: PeerTube

How to search PeerTube, how to discover PeerTube videos to watch and PeerTube accounts to follow

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There are several different ways of searching and browsing videos and accounts on PeerTube, each with its own advantages and disadvantages listed in their sections below.

NOTE: You don’t need a PeerTube account to follow or interact with PeerTube accounts and videos! You can follow and interact with PeerTube from entirely within Mastodon if you want to, the videos will show up in your main timeline like any other post and your replies in Mastodon will automatically become comments in PeerTube.

To follow a PeerTube account from within Mastodon, copy-paste the PeerTube account’s Fediverse address into the search box in Mastodon. Its profile page will appear in the search results, where you can click “follow”.

Sepia Search

Sepia Search ⧉ is the official PeerTube search engine run by the developers of the PeerTube server software. It tries to index all public videos from as many PeerTube servers as possible, but will remove problematic servers when noticed or reported.

Sepia Search has the widest range of search results, but also the greatest risk of seeing unsuitable or problematic content. You can use it at SepiaSearch.org ⧉ or see a list of the servers it indexes at instances.JoinPeerTube.org ⧉.

⚠️ If you see anything unsuitable in the Sepia Search index, report it to the PeerTube server where you saw it via the server’s website (click on “More info” and then “Contact us”). If that doesn’t work or if the entire server is problematic, you can ask Sepia Search directly to remove that server from their index by going to instances.JoinPeerTube.org ⧉ and emailing the address at the Report an instance link in the top right corner of the page.

(For any techy people reading this, Sepia Search runs on free open source software ⧉ and people with the required technical knowledge are free to create their own alternative index using their own list of servers ⧉.)

Fedi.Video

Fedi.Video ⧉ is an unofficial site trying to create a safer higher-quality human-curated way to search and browse the best accounts on PeerTube. Every account listed on Fedi.Video has been manually checked before it is included in the index.

You can search and browse Fedi.Video on its website ⧉. You can search using the search box at the top, you can browse lots of human-curated playlists on particular topics below the search box, or browse the latest videos and trending videos below the playlists.

Fedi.Video has a much narrower range of search results compared to Sepia Search, but because it’s human-curated it’s also a lot safer and higher quality. If you do see anything unsuitable, you can report it on the Fedi.Video website by clicking “More Info” and then “Contact Us”.

PeerTube recommended account list on Fedi.Directory

The Fedi.Directory website lists interesting accounts from across the Fediverse, and has a section listing good PeerTube accounts ⧉ which you may want to browse.

When you find an account you want to follow on this list, copy its Fediverse address and paste this into the search box in your own server on Mastodon or PeerTube (or many other Fediverse platforms). This will bring up its profile which you can click follow on.

Note that the list on Fedi.Directory randomises each time the page is loaded in order to give accounts equal visibility. If you intend to gradually go through the list, leave it open in a tab while you do so and don’t reload it.

Search box on PeerTube servers

Each PeerTube server has a search box at the top, but these are not all the same. Each server’s admin decides what kind of results show up for searches

Some admins opt to just search channels that the server federates. Others have connected it to Sepia Search to give a wider range of results. Meanwhile some servers just show results for videos on that server.

If you’re unsure about what an admin has chosen for their server, you can contact them via that server’s “More Info” page on its website.

Search box on Mastodon servers

Because PeerTube is part of the Fediverse, its accounts and videos will often show up in searches on Mastodon etc servers. For example if you search for “Blender” on your Mastodon server you may well see the official Blender PeerTube account in the results. Mastodon search boxes show all the results for all the accounts and posts that that Mastodon server has noticed.

However, there is no way to split Mastodon search results by server type, so there’s no way to split the PeerTube results from the Mastodon etc results. You will see PeerTube accounts and videos mixed in with Mastodon etc accounts and posts and they’re not labelled differently in any way. PeerTube videos look like Mastodon posts when viewed within Mastodon.

Making your own PeerTube search engine (if you are techy)

All of the software used in Sepia Search is free and and open source. If you are a very techy person who likes to host their own online services, you can make your own alternative to Sepia Search using your own list of servers.

The source code for the search engine is here ⧉ and the source code for the server list is here ⧉.

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Fedilab for Android

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Third party Mastodon, PeerTube & Fediverse app, free open source software, available from Google Play (free) ⧉ & F-Droid (free) ⧉

Screenshot of a Mastodon post viewed in Fedilab, it looks pretty standard.
Screenshot of a translated post in a thread in Fedilab. The post is in German and there's a translation of it immediately below in a separate box.
Screenshot of the LibreOffice profile page viewed through Fedilab. The metadata section looks slightly messy.
Account switcher and options menu on Fedilab, there are lots of options in the menu to select from.
The settings sub-menu in Fedilab, an even wider range of categories to choose from such as interface, theming, timelines, account, compose etc.
The Extra Features settings page on Fedilab which allows additional features on Mastodon forks and non-Mastodon servers to be accessed through Fedilab's interface.
The filter editing page on Fedilab, the options are similar to those on the web interface of Mastodon.
Screenshot of a PeerTube video viewed through Fedilab, it includes the standard PeerTube options including thumbs up and thumbs down etc.
Privacy options page on Fedilab offering to open YouTube, Twitter, Instagram etc links within privacy-friendly alternative front ends.
Screenshot of a post on Mastodon with a slightly different visual theme with a greyer colour.
The theme options page on Fedilab.
Searching PeerTube through Fedilab, it brings up results for a search for Nintendo.
Browsing videos on PeerTube through Fedilab, there is a dedicated Fedilab set of buttons at the bottom of the screen which mirror the options on the Fedilab web interface.
The manage timelines page on Fedilab, allows reordering of timelines in the graphical interface.
Interactions menu on Fedilab, with various categories including bookmarks, muted users, home muted users, blocked users, favourites etc.
Recently added PeerTube videos viewed through Fedilab, with colourful thumbnails in contrast with the dark app theme.
Screenshots from Fedilab v3.24.1

General impressions

At first glance appears to be pretty standard, but once you start going through the options and settings there is so much more under the surface. Many, many useful features and good support for non-Mastodon Fediverse servers. It’s not the best-looking app, but that doesn’t matter because it does lots of things other apps cannot do.

Nice stuff

  • All the standard extras available the web interface such as post editing, pinned posts, hashtag follows, lists, filters, trending tags, trending posts etc.
  • All the timelines (Home, Local, Federated, Explore) are there, as are all the visibilities (Public, Unlisted, Followers-Only, Mentions-Only and Local-Only (for servers that support local-only posts))
  • Free open source software
  • Allows users to be muted just on home timeline while still appearing on lists, which is great for creating multiple separate timelines from the same account. (Also, you can set lists to automatically include home muted users.)
  • Scheduled posts and scheduled boosts, including boosts of own or others’ posts
  • Post drafts, automatically asks you if you close a message without posting it
  • Built-in translation, built-in dictionary and spell checker
  • Good support for non-Mastodon Fediverse server types including Pixelfed, PeerTube, Friendica etc. Also includes support for extra features on Mastodon forks such as Glitch and Hometown.
  • PeerTube interface is particularly good, allows all the options from the web interface including uploads, and Fedilab can easily be used as a dedicated PeerTube app
  • Customisable timeline and interface options, colour themes, adjustable text and icon sizes.
  • Conversation thread maps
  • Lets you fetch data from remote servers which allows conversations and profiles to be updated with information that hasn’t federated to your server yet.
  • Optional privacy features for links such as UTM stripping, and using alternative frontends for links to popular services (for example Nitter to view Twitter links, Invidious to view YouTube links etc).
  • Lots more options such as automatic cache clearance.

Potential drawbacks

  • Some of the formatting could be slicker and neater, for example metadata tables on profiles look a bit messy
  • Some English translations slightly odd, such as “trending messages” when it means trending posts
  • Occasional weird bugs, for example the Manage Timelines page brings up a “No timelines was found on this instance” error message

Hints & Tips

  • Polls can be added to posts by clicking the attachment button (the paperclip) and selecting the poll icon
  • You can jump to the top of a timeline by double-tapping the timeline’s icon

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PeerTube: Video on the Fediverse

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Screenshot of the PeerTube server fedi.video featuring many themed recommended playlists on topics such as animation, food, crafts, retro gaming etc.
Screenshot of the PeerTube server Fedi.Video ⧉

PeerTube ⧉ is a video platform for the Fediverse, sort of like Mastodon but for videos.

Just like Mastodon, PeerTube is spread out on many different servers that talk to each other. Also, because both PeerTube and Mastodon are part of the Fediverse, PeerTube accounts can be followed from Mastodon etc as well as from other PeerTube servers.

How do I watch PeerTube videos and follow PeerTube accounts? How can I follow them from Mastodon?

If you’re wanting to just watch and interact with videos, have a look at the guide to using PeerTube.

How do I upload videos to PeerTube?

If you want to upload videos on PeerTube, check out the guide to publishing on PeerTube.

I’ve already got a PeerTube account, how do I get more viewers for my videos?

If you want to make your PeerTube presence more noticeable, see the guide to promoting your PeerTube account and videos.

Where can I see an example of PeerTube in action?

If you just want to see an example of a working PeerTube server, have a look at fedi.video ⧉.

How do I search PeerTube?

If you want to find videos on PeerTube, see the guide to searching PeerTube.

Which apps can I use with PeerTube?

You can follow and interact with PeerTube from your Mastodon account, including through your server’s website or any Mastodon app.

Alternatively, if you are using a PeerTube account yourself, you can use your PeerTube server’s website, or the Android apps Fedilab and NewPipe ⧉.

If you just want to watch videos without interacting, you can subscribe to PeerTube channels through your favourite podcast app.

What if I want to start my own PeerTube server?

There are basically three options:

Isn’t video really expensive to host?

Video sites are definitely more expensive to run than text-based social networks, but PeerTube has a clever system to keep the costs down.

When several people watch the same video, they start sharing their bandwidth on a peer-to-peer connection (which is where PeerTube gets its name). This significantly reduces the strain on the PeerTube server where the video is hosted, and it provides the greatest amount of help when the strain is greatest.

I thought PeerTube was a way to view YouTube videos with better privacy?

No. You’re probably thinking of a totally different project called Invidious ⧉

Does PeerTube run on blockchain or cryptocurrency or something?

No. None of the Fediverse uses blockchain or anything like it. The Fediverse runs on traditional sustainable servers federated in a structure similar to email.

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RSS on Mastodon and the Fediverse

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RSS feeds are simple, easy-to-use feeds of content from the internet, such as news articles, videos and podcasts. You can use RSS apps to follow Mastodon accounts, and use Mastodon accounts to follow RSS feeds.

What is RSS?

RSS is basically just a special kind of internet address that tells an RSS app where to find content. The apps used to follow RSS feeds are often called “feed readers” or “news readers”. When you enter an RSS address into an RSS app, the posts made by that address are shown in a chronological list.

RSS feeds can work for all kinds of content including blogs, news sites, podcasts etc. (Most podcast apps are powered by RSS, even if they don’t publicly state this.)

How to follow Mastodon accounts from an RSS feed reader app

All Mastodon accounts have an RSS address which can be followed from RSS apps:

  1. Go to a Mastodon account profile’s original page on a web browser.
  2. Copy the web address from the browser’s address bar
  3. Add .rss to the end of the web address to create the account’s RSS address
  4. Add the account’s RSS address to your RSS app

For example, the RSS feed for the FediTips account is https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips.rss ⧉.

Note that the RSS feed of a Mastodon account only shows posts with public visibility, you will not see replies or posts with other visibilities.

How to follow Mastodon hashtags from an RSS feed reader app

The RSS feed of a hashtag on a server can be found by doing the following:

  1. Go to the server’s website
  2. Search for the hashtag
  3. Click the hashtag from the suggestions list
  4. Copy the hashtag’s web address and add .rss to the end to get its feed

How to follow RSS feeds from Mastodon

You can also now do this the other way around, and follow RSS feeds from your Mastodon account, thanks to a service called RSS Parrot ⧉:

  1. Create a new post but don’t publish it yet
  2. Mention the RSS Parrot Fediverse account @birb@rss-parrot.net
  3. Mention the RSS address you want to follow
  4. Publish the post (it doesn’t have to be a public post, DMs will work as well)
  5. RSS Parrot will create a new Fediverse account that mirrors the contents of the RSS address you provided, and then reply to you with a link to the new account
  6. Follow this new account to follow the RSS feed

This method works for any Fediverse platform that supports microblogging, including Mastodon and many other Fedi platforms.

How to follow PeerTube Channels and Accounts from RSS apps

You can follow any PeerTube accounts or channel through RSS apps:

  1. Go to the channel’s or account’s profile page on PeerTube
  2. Click the channel’s or account’s Subscribe button (if you are logged in on that PeerTube server, click the little arrow on the right of the subscribe button instead)
  3. There will be an RSS subscription option at the bottom of the subscription menu, click this to go to the RSS feed (which may look a bit crazy but don’t worry!)
  4. Copy the address at the top of the browser to get the channel’s or account’s RSS address
  5. Paste the RSS address into your RSS app

This feed will deliver embedded videos to your feed reader and you can watch them there.

Friendica: Champion of RSS

The Fediverse platform Friendica has probably the best RSS support on the Fediverse, including a built-in feed reader which doesn’t need any third party services or apps.

To follow an RSS feed in Friendica:

  1. Paste the RSS address into the search box in Friendica
  2. The RSS feed’s profile page will appear, click Follow
  3. The RSS feed’s contents will start showing up in your main timeline as it is published, and will look like normal account posts

Friendica also lets you turn RSS feeds into Fediverse accounts that people can follow from other Fediverse platforms.

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