Catalyst is an open-source, full-featured media server which leverages the superpowers of the Livepeer network to facilitate a new generation of media applications.
Livepeer’s mission is to build the world’s open video infrastructure. In the current technology ecosystem, successfully creating a network of media servers capable of facilitating low-latency global livestreaming is a monumental task. Making video work requires enormous expertise and expense in software engineering, server procurement, and video knowledge. The task is so difficult that the few companies that have managed it have an enormous disincentive to share; they’d rather resell you their infrastructure at an enormous markup.
Livepeer’s incentives are different. We win in a world where it’s easier for everyone to create sophisticated, novel, innovative video applications. The core Livepeer network addresses that through collaborative access to transcoding, and radically reducing the cost of transcoding is a crucial part of the solution. But that’s not enough. What’s needed is a full-featured software suite of media software, allowing for remixing, compositing, storage, clipping, and global replication and distribution. That software is Livepeer Catalyst.
Our goal is to grow Catalyst into the greatest media toolkit in the world; we want it to be the obvious solution for the next generation of media applications.
It’s not ready for that quite yet. But if you’re a developer and you want to contribute to the Catalyst revolution, we’re just about ready for you. Read on to see how you can get a node started.
The Livepeer Catalyst Hackers Group is an open working group aimed at releasing Livepeer Catalyst. Its high priority milestone is to release a well documented, self hosted version of Catalyst, that a developer can easily launch and run on their laptop or web server, to develop their video application.
The working group meets bi-weekly for an open video call on Fridays at 11:30am ET.