1 yr. ago • 96%

Does/Will Lemmy support videos/GIFs like Reddit?

I'm trying to build a sublemmy (BeWowed) based on r/Damnthat's intresting and r/BeAmazed material that I have accumulated over the years but i need to host all the videos on imgur. Will lemmy be able to host videos? Do you have better alternatives than imgur? Thanks!

37 comments

I think that the main problem with hosting videos on this platform is the amount of space. Keep in mind, Lemmy runs on donations, it does not have venture capitalist backing of any kind. So even if the support for videos (or gifs) eventually comes, it will either be very restricted (i.e. max 8mb uploads, similar to Discord's free tier uploads) or disabled entirely by the instance admins because the cost for hosting video will be just way too much.

Time will tell, I guess, for now there's no video support being mentioned anywhere on GitHub issues, so it is likely not planned.

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- Except for porn of course, that instance already allows 25MB uploads
  
  40
  
  The internet can't function without its lifeblood!
  
  44
  
  A link for science?
  
  2
- Posting an embed link shouldn't be an issue. You don't have to host the video directly to display it on a website.
  
  <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
  
  Lemmy just need to accept embed in comments
  
  24
  
  I thought OP refers to uploading videos here directly, obviously embedding should become available soon once someone submits the PR.
  
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  At least in kbin, if you link a video on a site that allows embedding it includes a handy little button to show the embedded video automagically. Not sure how it's handled in Lemmy though. :)
  
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- Thanks for the in depth reply! Are there better alternatives than imgur?
  
  7
  
  catbox.moe is great and embeds into Lemmy, unlike redgifs
  
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  Permanently Deleted
  
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  So the writing's on the wall: Imgur will sooner or later intensify its enshitification, so it's not safe relying on it for image/gif uploads for Lemmy...
  
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It adds a lot of server space and traffic requirements so it’s probably better hosted externally.

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- I've completely forgotten what it is, but I remember reading in a comment a few days ago that there is something meant to replace Youtube in the fediverse. If that's true, then it might be interesting to add a way to automatically upload videos to that from the lemmy submission page.
  
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  PeerTube for video, Pixelfed for images.
  
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  Permanently Deleted
  
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  Cool idea!!
  
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  PeerTube
  
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I think that many people underestimate what it takes to host videos on the internet.

That being said, isn’t there a federated, distributed video hosting network on the fediverse? Maybe it would be better to just embed links from that.

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- Well there's PeerTube, but it's just like the old YouTube with fewer features. Can't do Shorts, can't get embedded iframe plays for now
  
  2
  
  Does it Play YouTube video or it is another YouTube with it's own videos? Because i need YouTube but i hate reels shorts and don't want them
  
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I recommend http://gifer.com/ or YouTube depending on the content.

You can check out how it works on my community !whatcouldgowrong@lemm.ee

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- That one uses a nasty cookie notice.
  
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  I haven't seen that. What do you mean?
  
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Here on Kbin, the image upload supports GIFs up to 5MB or so. They get still frame thumbnails, but the user can click on it to see the full-size animated version. I've attached Higitus Figitus by R!k! to this comment as an example.

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For kbin users, if auto load media is enabled, YouTube videos etc auto load even if they're just linked in the post or comment.

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