These videos are no longer getting watched too much after the two-week mark

Aug 7, 2014 08:46 GMT  ·  By

Video platform and gamers’ community Twitch is all about making changes these days. After announcing that it was going to start muting portions of videos that include songs that are infringing on copyright, Twitch is also changing the way the platform handles video storing.

By saying that its goal is to deliver the highest quality videos, including the ability to watch video on demand (VOD) on all platforms, not just the website, Twitch had to make several changes to the way they’re currently storing videos.

While the company has allowed until now for users to save their live broadcasts in “Past Broadcasts” for an unlimited time period, this isn’t a viable option any more.

These videos can be edited into Highlights and watched on the website or exported to YouTube, but at this point in time, it’s impossible to have a Highlight without the actual entire broadcast being stored as well.

About 80 percent of the company’s storage capacity is filled with past broadcasts that are never watched. According to a chart from Twitch, 84 percent of the total views happen within the first two weeks.

The update Twitch is rolling out will only allow default storage for past broadcasts from 3 days to a maximum of 14 days for everyone who has opted in, while Turbo subscribers and members of the Twitch Partner Program will be able to keep their files to a maximum of 60 days. Highlights will still be open for indefinite storage.

In order to enable this, however, Twitch had to remove the “save forever” option entirely for past broadcasts, which the company believes the tradeoff is better for everyone, especially given the viewership pattern on this type of content.

“To be clear: this is not a move to economize on space. Due to the triple redundancy, it will actually require us to substantially increase our total amount of storage,” the company said. Existing past broadcasts will start being removed from the platform three weeks from now. Users who still want to keep their videos are encouraged to start exporting them or making highlights of their best moments so that they’re saved for ever.

The company is rolling out a new Video Manager to make it easier to create said highlights, to export them or to create expiration countdowns. This should make it easier for everyone to handle their videos and to make sure their content is still available.