1y ago

Where are all the videos and gifs?

I’ve noticed that on Lemmy there aren’t really any videos/gifs as I scroll. I just see post titles, links, or images.

Is there a reason videos and gifs aren’t showing up on my feed?

113 comments

Lemmy doesn't really support embedding videos yet. It's a highly requested festure so i think we can be assured it'll be here within a future update.
- Quite possibly not. Remember that the admins running lemmy instances have very limited revenue so paying for servers is an issue. Some instances even encourage posting links instead of images to save on cost.
  Videos are in a league of their own when it comes to size and therefore the server power needed. Lemmy probably can't afford it. Its the prive we pay for no ads. You have to link videos.
  
  Embedding videos doesn’t require local storage of videos. When you embed a YouTube video, you’re just linking a container which loads and displays the video from YouTube’s servers.
  
  Yeah, my instance has a 100kb file size limit on images and recommends posting links as well. Not sure how that’s gonna play out long term. With sites like gfycat shutting down and nuking their content, I wonder if we’re exiting the era of free hosting and sharing as well.
  
  I'm not sure if Lemmy already does it or not but I wouldn't mind if it also compressed attached pictures to save on storage and bandwidth like some other forums does (eg compress picture to <1mb).
  
  Huh. Good point. I kinda assumed differently. I have no doubt it's heavily requested tho. Guess things just wont be as convenient.
- But why not even links to videos or gifs
- Glad to hear it’s a requested feature. It kinda just hit me that it seems empty with no videos or gifs as you scroll. They definitely need to implement an embedded video player instead of links to videos/gifs.

GIFs work. At least in the comments they do. Videos can be (somewhat) embedded if you use an external host (i.e. catbox).
GIF sample:
- I'm a bitter old man who dislikes inline gifs in the comments, is there a way to block it like I did with RES on Reddit?
  
  Using wefwef at the moment (Apollo inspired) you can use it on android desktop and iPhone as it is a webapp and they show up as a link for me that I can then click and doesn’t embed it or inline it.
  
  I'm not aware of an option like that but that sounds like a good feature.
  
  I’m a bitter old man who dislikes inline gifs in the comments
  I've waffled on this issue over the last 25 years, but agree that the option to show/block should still exist.
  First I was against it.
  Mostly because it was change - cluttering my once pristine BBSs
  Then I enjoyed it.
  Because it added some liveliness to the threads I read, and because I was in a smaller collective of folks that knew how to do it without being annoying.
  Then I was against it again.
  Because the forums/boards because overstuffed with people shitposting ONLY animated gifs.
- It's not a gif for me, just a still image.
  
  What client are you using? It plays as a GIF on the browser but it might be a still image in a mobile app.
  
  It's a gif for me.
  Are you using an app or something that maybe doesn't support it? Or on kbin or something maybe?
- It's not a gif for me, just a still image.
- I dunno what it is with catbox but nothing from there ever loads for me.
  
  Catbox has a FAQ and lists connectivity issues in certain countries like Australia, Ireland/UK, Iran, Afghanistan or users of Comcast and Quad9.
  
  They block some countries. I'm in Indonesia and I can't open catbox too without using VPN.
- It's not a gif for me, just a still image.
- It's not a gif for me, just a still image.
- It's not a gif for me, just a still image.
- When people say "gifs" nowadays they don't mean actual .gif files, .gif files are very outdated and barely used at this point.
  Gif has just become the term for short videos without sound
  
  I think actual .GIF files are still used but oftentimes they're just converted to .WEBM's without sound.

I have seen couple videos, one was a drone killing Russian soldiers, other ones were for porn. So it may just be lack of interest, or lack of convenience to share videos.
- What more can you need?
  
  Cat videos?

I'm waiting for
Instant Regret
What could go wrong (it's there but not much input)
Damn that's interesting
Public Freakout
Or some funny fail videos
- Be the change you want to see
- Yes I want all those on Lemmy!

What I would do is upload videos to peertube instance (the peertube servers are better equipped for storing videos and most of them are free + offer more or less unlimited storage) and for pictures use plethora or pixelfied. Lemmy and mastodon are just one aspect of the whole fediverse, there's all sorts of instanced equipped to be all sorts of things https://fediverse.info/

Didn't one of the larger gif sites announce their discontinuation?
- Yeah, Gfycat is going away
  
  That’s gonna suck when all those gifs disappear

You can go to/c/kidsbeingderps to see some gifs in action. It’s a new community so there’s not much, but hope it grows. Using Memmy app, I can see the gifs in action as I scroll, similar to Apollo.
- Why isn't that a link... Is that a Lemmy thing or an instance thing or an app thing? These tiny UX friction points are important for retention.
  
  Sorry, I made a typo in the link. It should work now.
  
  Because they left out the instance.

I've always hated reddit hosted videos, the performance was terrible. A link to youtube was always so much faster. I guess it made sense for subreddits that focused on video content, but I never cared about any of those.
- Doesn't need to be hosted on the server. Just need the client's to support smooth embedding from other video hosts like peertube.
- I've always hated reddit hosted videos, the performance was terrible.
  Me too! And they never had any sound when I maximized them. It was awful!

- Gifs in the comments? Nice.
  
  Is there a setting to disable gifs and other images in comments? Or at least minimize them so I have to click before they appear?

This is why I prefer kbin over Lemmy. -- I'm posting this on kbin.social right now.
Kbin honestly looks like a drop replacement for Reddit. If you were not paying attention and had given Kbin the Reddit logo, you could easily mistake this for Reddit. Plus it is further developed along.
- Except for the ability to sort by top.
  
  It's because the Top is judged by the amount of boosts, not the favorites or upvotes.
- I would say it reminds me of Reddit circa 2010. It's still pretty rough around the edges but it's also the most fun I've had on the Internet in years.
  
  Unfortunately it looks like Lemmy is going to get all the mobile apps, though.

113 comments