[richardw]

I had the impression that TikTok must be pre-loading videos. I would keep 1-n ready to go for startup (depending on storage) and then load whatever is optimal at runtime. Optimise for no wait times, control the selection and distribution. It’s not like YouTube where the client is roaming all over. Video preferences seem local ish so you can keep videos in-country for a lot of content.

[kuschku]

I assume Tiktok loads the initial fMP4 fragment (metadata + 500ms of video) for about 10 videos at once.

If you scroll extremely fast through videos, you'll always get a short moment where it's loading after the same number of videos.