Introducing Tags & Timestamps

Here it is, the much requested tags update! This feature adds tagging and timestamping capabilities. With this new feature, finding special moments in vods will become easier than ever.

Tags and timestamps are available for everyone to view, while creating tags and timestamps is restricted to visitors who have logged in via Patreon.

A new tag index page, https://futureporn.net/tags shows all the tags on site, with clickable links that filter vods containing those tags.

When watching a vod, any tag can be clicked which brings up a menu in the timestamp box. This lets you create a timestamp at the time displayed in the video player.

This feature took about a month to implement. Under the hood, this is a very complex system that required several breaking changes. Some chances took the site down for a few hours. 

Other changes ended up being good for my development experience, such as removing the two separate video players. This means I no longer have to maintain two separate players, and the intricacies of getting streaming video to play on each.

Previously I was using Plyr.io for the public (IPFS) player, and video.js for the Patron (Mux) player. Now I'm using Vidstack, the successor to Plyr.io. Vidstack plays both IPFS and Mux video sources.

I'm really enjoying both the developer experience and the playback experience for vidstack, but I have to be honest. There is something lost from the previous futureporn experience in this new player, and that's being able to explicitly select between IPFS and Mux. I'm a little worried that this is too big of a change for visitors, so I'm hoping to get some feedback on it.

My reasoning for this change is that it removes a part. Part reduction is critical in systems that scale, and something I've picked up from following the work being done at one of my favorite companies, Tesla Inc. There's a great example on youtube about how Tesla engineers simplified their car doorhandles over time. The changes removed cost and complexity, while reducing weight and improving reliability. I'm inspired by this way of thinking, and I'm applying it.

I think most people don't care where their video is served from. They only care about watching the video in a timely fashion. To that end, the new vidstack player automatically chooses the video source that loads first. For patrons, this will likely be the Mux video source, as Mux has video serving datacenters distributed around the world. Vods without a Mux video asset will not have that option, so the player will automatically load whichever of the IPFS video sources (source or 240p) loads fastest.

This brings me to an ongoing issue of slow IPFS video streaming. Lately, video playback via this method has been almost impossible due to the stalling and seemingly infinite load times. In many cases, it's better to download the IPFS content via IPFS Desktop rather than attempting to stream it via futureporn. 

I'm going to spend the second half of June doing what I can to alleviate this problem. I don't know what the solution is just yet, but I've been getting some good ideas from Futureporn Discord community members.

This post is on the shorter side today. I'm feeling pretty exhausted after my recent sprint to get tags and timestamps implemented and deployed, and now I'm ready for some sleep. I hope tags and timestamps are helpful to you! 

If you have any thoughts on the topic, I'd love to hear them. As with every part of Futureporn, the work is never over and I am committed to continual improvement. Thank you so much for your patience and support!