Play a Video from IPFS or Arweave

Playing back transcoded video from IPFS or Arweave is easy with livepeer.js! The example below uses the Player's built-in capabilities to transcode IPFS/Arweave content without any additional configuration.

IPFS is a network of nodes that allow you to read content from the network using a content identifier unique to the data you’re requesting, ensuring you are able to securely and verifiably get exactly what you are asking for, regardless of where the data is physically stored. Arweave is a set of nodes that are incentivized to store data permanently; content stored on the network is pulled through an Arweave gateway.

⚠️

This example illustrates how Livepeer can be used as a video processing and caching layer on top of content available on IPFS or the Arweave gateway for optimized video playback. We recommend uploading via useCreateAsset or the API before displaying it in the player for best performance. For comprehensive IPFS / Arweave support we offer a fallback option to play directly from IPFS/Arweave while the video is being uploaded to Livepeer, but do not recommend it for typical usage because it may result in long load times for viewers.

ℹ

For rapid processing of assets that will also be archived on IPFS or Arweave, we strongly encourage either (1) uploading to Livepeer with the IPFS storage option enabled, or (2) uploading the raw file to Livepeer via useCreateAsset or the API prior to archiving on dStorage, rather than passing the IPFS / Arweave gateway URL. The gateway URL will work, but may incur longer-than-usual processing time.

IPFS or Arweave URL

💡

To see a complete example of using dStorage playback in React, see our example app on Github (opens in a new tab).

Configuring Providers

First, we create a new livepeer.js client with the Studio provider and a CORS-protected API key:

App.tsx

import {
  LivepeerConfig,
  createReactClient,
  studioProvider,
} from '@livepeer/react';
import * as React from 'react';
 
const livepeerClient = createReactClient({
  provider: studioProvider({
    apiKey: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_STUDIO_API_KEY,
  }),
});
 
// Pass client to React Context Provider
function App() {
  return (
    <LivepeerConfig client={livepeerClient}>
      <DecentralizedStoragePlayback />
    </LivepeerConfig>
  );
}

Automatic Playback

Now that our providers are set up, we can add a text input for an IPFS CID or an IPFS/Arweave HTTP gateway URL.

💡

For IPFS HTTP gateway URLs, the Studio provider currently only supports “path style” URLs and does not support “subdomain style” URLs. The Studio provider will support both styles of URLs in a future update.

The raw input is passed to the Player, which automatically detects if it is a valid CID and attempts to fetch the playback info for that CID. If the provider does not have an Asset with that CID, the Player will automatically attempt to upload the CID from IPFS, and then play the transcoded content back, without any additional code on the frontend. To ensure that there is no delay in playback, we recommend uploading via useCreateAsset before displaying it in the player.

DecentralizedStoragePlayback.tsx

import { Player } from '@livepeer/react';
import { parseArweaveTxId, parseCid } from 'livepeer/media';
 
import { useMemo, useState } from 'react';
 
export const DecentralizedStoragePlayback = () => {
  const [url, setUrl] = useState<string>('');
 
  const idParsed = useMemo(() => parseCid(url) ?? parseArweaveTxId(url), [url]);
 
  return (
    <div>
      <p>IPFS or Arweave URL</p>
      <input
        type="text"
        placeholder="ipfs://... or ar://"
        onChange={(e) => setUrl(e.target.value)}
      />
 
      {url && !idParsed && <p>Provided value is not a valid identifier.</p>}
 
      {idParsed && (
        <Player
          title={idParsed.id}
          src={url}
          autoPlay
          muted
          autoUrlUpload={{ fallback: true, ipfsGateway: 'https://w3s.link' }}
        />
      )}
    </div>
  );
};

Wrap Up

That's it! You just configured a caching & transcoding layer on top of IPFS and Arweave with a few lines of code!

Check out these resources for more about Livepeer:

The Livepeer Studio introductory blog post (opens in a new tab)
Our 10-minute Primer (opens in a new tab) to learn about our decentralized compute network

Mint a Video NFT Stream w/ Access Control