22 Jul 2026 · 5 min read
A 24/7 loop is one video file, pushed continuously to a live endpoint so that it starts again the moment it ends. To the platform it is a live stream. To a viewer it is a channel that is always on.
Live streaming has nothing to do with when the footage was recorded. An encoder opens a connection to an ingest server and sends frames; the platform relays them to viewers. Whether those frames come from a camera or a file on disk is invisible from the other end.
That is the whole trick. A loop is not a workaround - it is the ordinary live pipeline being fed from a file instead of a capture card.
It appears live. It sits in live directories and carries the live badge, which is a different surface from the video library.
It has a chat. Viewers arrive together and talk to each other, which an uploaded video does not offer.
Nobody starts at the beginning. Everyone joins mid-flow, so the video has to make sense from any point.
It is continuous. There is no play button to press and no end screen.
Anything where being permanently visible is worth more than being individually watched: a game on a store page, a product showcase, ambient or music channels, event countdowns, a running demo. The value is occupancy - being there when someone happens to look.
Anything that depends on a beginning. Narrative, tutorials with steps, anything with a punchline. If it only works watched from the start, it belongs in the library rather than the loop.
Loopcast runs the loop from a datacenter rather than your machine, which is the difference between a stream that survives a reboot and one that does not.