Webtorrent works differently that Bittorrent. Distribution is downloading in this case but it's not persistent like a traditional torrent file. While the video is being played it is distributed to others in a peer swarm. The CDN hosted file is used as an initial boot strap sed called the "webseed" and the peer network spreads it from there. 👍

BitVid is a creator-controlled video platform that uses Nostr for identity and publishing, S3-compatible storage for the actual video files, and WebTorrent to help distribute them. Instead of uploading everything to a company-owned platform like YouTube, creators can keep their videos in their own storage bucket while publishing them through their Nostr identity. The S3 bucket acts as the reliable home for each video. It makes sure the file remains available even when nobody else is watching or sharing it. Creators can use services such as Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, or another compatible provider, giving them more control over where their content is stored. WebTorrent helps reduce bandwidth usage by allowing viewers to share pieces of the video with one another while they watch. When peers are available, some of the video can come from them; when they are not, the S3 bucket fills in the missing pieces. In simple terms, S3 keeps the video reliably online, while WebTorrent lets the audience help distribute it. Nostr ties everything together by handling the creator’s identity, video metadata, comments, reactions, and publishing. This makes the videos more portable because the creator’s identity and posts are not locked inside BitVid itself. 🤙

Working on improving the mobile experience this week.

Bitvid has Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2 and Generic S3 bucket support. I'm also testing support for MinOS for self-hosted NAS storage. Our integration with Webtorrent should help distributeing content to many viewers by distributing the load to the client viewers themselves.