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The new and improved DTube, version 0.6 has just been launched so here is an easy to digest video tour of all the new features.
https://about.d.tube/
So before we begin, let me not make any assumptions here, DTube is a decentralised rival for YouTube built on the Steem blockchain and IPFS technology.
The combination of these two technologies means neither the data nor the video files are centrally hosted.
This creates a one of a kind platform that allows people to earn cryptocurrency rewards, is resistant to censorship, has no ads AND is entirely open source.
You find out more by going to about.d.tube but for now let’s begin the tour of all the new features in version 0.6.
Also note that this is simply the video version of the official DTube 0.6 announcement post on Steemit.
My thinking was that most people won’t be bothered to read it and DTube will not get enough appreciation.
As a video, many more people will get the information and DTube will get the recognition it so dearly deserves.
https://steemit.com/dtube/@heimindanger/d-tube-0-6-pushing-it-to-the-limit
Growing By A Video A Minute
At time of recording D.Tube has grown to the point where a new video is uploaded every minute!
That gives you some perspective and destroys any notion that DTube is some theoretical project that is only being used by a handful of people.
More Encoding Power
For DTube to be usable by the average user they should have to put in as little effort as possible.
That means the DTube system needs to take whatever video file you give it and then automatically process it behind the scenes into a format that everyone is able to view.
DTube has grown so much since v0.5, 2 more dedicated servers have been brought online, just for encoding the videos.
New Logo
So now we have this new branding which is much better and much clearer.
New Media Kit
https://about.d.tube/mediakit.html
Following on from the new logo, this forms part of the new DTube media kit, which was one of the most popular requests.
This allows the DTube brand to appear consistently when people use it within their videos as well as opens up the possibility for you to create your own t-shirts, mugs and all other kind of merchandise bearing the DTube logo.
Improved Loading Logic
In this version of DTube when you click on a video the player will scan the IPFS network to find the copy of the file that has the fastest connection to you and then load it from there.
This not only means the video will start playing faster when you first click on it, it should also play smoother and without interruptions.
The video player is now also using a full custom design with a proper settings menu where you can change the speed at which the video plays.
This is also where new settings can be added in future updates.
Hotkeys
The player now also responds to keyboard commands.
Press space to play and pause the video.
Press left and right arrow keys to go back 5 seconds or forward 5 seconds.
If you press a number such as 5, it will jump to the 5 minute point.
Frame Thumbnail Preview
You’ll find another feature when it comes to scrubbing the timeline.
When you hover your mouse of the timeline, you now get a thumbnail preview so you can find particular part of the video.
Thumbnail Resizing
We spoke earlier on about how DTube takes in all kind of different video files and then processed them into a universal format everyone can view.
Well, DTube is now also doing that for pictures.
Now, no matter if someone uploads a picture straight from their digital camera, DTube will resize the image to a small thumbnail so it loads super fast for the viewers but without the person uploading having to put in any effort.
More than that though, DTube now only loads thumbnails that are in view. You can see this in action by visiting the hot videos page.
Discovery
One big drawback of DTube up until now was that unless you were already a super popular creator, you wouldn’t get in the hot or trending actions and thus would never be discovered.
In this new version of DTube when you open up the side menu you will see there are now dedicated pages for, hot, trending and new videos.
But there’s more.
These pages are now infinitely scrollable, making it much more likely for smaller creators to get their videos found.
Tag Browsing
And speaking of discovering stuff…
You can now browse Dtube by tags.
Let’s say if we click on a video, we watched it, we liked it and wanted more of the same…
You’ll notice that the tags are now listed right under the video player.
So I just click on one of these and boom…
I end up on another infinitely scrolling page full of videos that have this tag.
And finally…
if you need help with anything DTube related people use the DTube discord channel because that is now the official hub of the DTube community:
https://discord.gg/dtube
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS