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I was able to play them reliably from there, could even get the Video URL from their player and play the video in my local video player. Sometimes took a bit of delay for the video to get distributed but YouTube isn't much better for me when I try to play it as soon as Semper posts it.

Interesting, I watch alot of YouTube, but I am only able to get d.tube video's to play 1 out of 10 times. Must be some Internet routing weirdness from where I am??

Depending on the video the resolution may just be offline by down, sometimes the other resolution(s) still work then. But then the Video initially got posted I only had slight delays at start as the file got distributed through IPFS.

I thought that resolution might be the problem, so I would always check as I was able to view 480, but video's at 480 still had problems. I still am concerned about the video's expiring off IPFS.

As long as Semper keeps those videos pinned they shouldn't disappear from the IPFS network as he keeps a local copy. THe problem is with videos which he uploaded before via d.tube's upload form which have disappeared so far although they earned.
As Semper concluded IPFS is just not "release"-ready yet with content disappearing and you not having control over it.
I'd check and see if the content behind a given Hash (which you can get from the video url by right clicking the player) is still in the IPFS network via IPFS tools.

I will check that out, Thanks.