Dev Blog: Videos on Demand

Hey there! It's @ddrfr33k, with a huge update for you guys! We're working on something big. Something Vimm has needed, something people have asked for, and now we're ready to tell you more about it!

Okay, if you've read the title, You already know what it is. We're working on VOD replays for streamers. This means:

• A post on the Steem blockchain that can be upvoted, commented, and shared
• a video recording that you can download
• more opportunities to earn rewards on your live streams

Currently, we're working on testing the functionality. Both @chiren and I have identified a handful of awesome streamers who we are reaching out to or going to reach out to, in regards to testing. If you're selected, congratulations! You're now a guinea pig! Lucky you guys. I will be setting up a room in the Vimm discord that will be available to you very, very soon. I want you guys to poke around with the replay feature, and let @chiren and I know what you think of the replay functionality. Your feedback will be critical to the success of the feature!

ANYWAY! Once this is rolled out, you'll see a function under your dashboard that says "Replays." If you click on it, you'll see something like this:

Each of these relates to one of your streams. We're basing this off of your post created to the steem blockchain. You'll notice that there's two buttons for each stream: "Published" and "Watch." If you click on the former button, it will create a post on the Steem blockchain. You might have noticed this post by me. That was us testing the functionality. Guess what? It works!

We've already made a few tweaks to the way the posts look, so you should start seeing more posts in our Vimm Community very, very soon. I want all of you to interact with those replay posts, let us know how they work out. Do the videos look good, are there any issues you find, stuff like that.

Obviously, videos can get really, really big. Especially for users that stream 24/7. You know who you are. We're going to work with those content creators to ensure that they can take advantage of this when and where they can. That said, we're also not going to store videos forever. That would get very expensive very quickly, and we're a very bootstrapped company. That's not a bad thing, it just means you have a different set of constraints to be aware of and work around. For us, that means setting limits on how long we keep a VOD active. One of the big things that I championed with the leaderboard system rework was adding features at specific tiers to encourage people to improve and go out of their way to make amazing content. To that end, we're going to have tiered expiration limits on videos. Here's how it's going to break down:

• Top 5 and Platinum: VODs will stay active for a month. If you stay in the same tier month to month, the expiration time will be extended
• Gold: VODs will expire after 3 weeks
• Silver: VODs will expire after 1 week

And, I've got something I can spoil for all you awesome people that have read this far. We will be working on another way to keep your VODs active even longer than that! I can't say too much right now, just know that it's on the way. But yeah, that's all we got for right now. If you've read this far, I got a message for you.

Have a great day/evening, everyone!