Good ideas. SSR plus caching the first ~30s would definitely fix the cold start, but at that point it's a CDN, and bitvid is deliberately a static client with no server. What we can do client-side: we already try the direct URL first, fall back to WebTorrent if it stalls, and play HLS via hls.js when a host provides it. Next up is smarter probing (Range requests instead of HEAD, remembering dead hosts across sessions) and warming the first few seconds on hover. A ZeroNet-style nostr/nsite daemon that acts as a local caching relay + seeder is the real fix tbh. If someone builds it, bitvid would happily talk to it. Keep the ideas coming.

Yep, fair call, and thanks for flagging it. bitvid is a fully static client with no backend, so if the host a video points to goes down (or the torrent has no seeds), there's honestly nothing we can do to bring it back. We do probe sources (HEAD check on the URL, peer check on the magnet) and hide or flag the obviously dead ones, but it misses some, especially hosts that just hang. That banner is clearly past its prime too. If you hit any specific videos that never load, send me the links, they're really useful for tuning the probe. 🙏