Ah I see! Thanks for the explainer, I see where I misunderstood it.
I thought invidious got the entire video stream and streamed it back to the viewer - not just the link to it. So even if YouTube sees the invidious instance ip as the one grabbing the link, it would still see your ip as the one actually watching the stream.
I guess the bot related error I mentioned comes from when the server tries to get the stream link.
I’m still quite new to this but it is my understanding that invidious does serve as a proxy IF you are using a public instance. This is, I believe, why many instances get hit by the “sign in to confirm you’re not a bot, this helps protect our community” error due to so much traffic from the instance IP.
If you’re hosting your own instance YouTube will be able to see your IP. Since while it’s technically proxying your video requests, it’s still on your network.
I’m new to invidious and networking stuff in general so if I’m wrong please correct me.
I have a Minisform Venus UM790pro and have been using it since February for gaming and hosting a couple of servers. It’s currently available on the minisforum website for $599 with 32Gb Ram and a 1TB SSD. I think this would be perfect for your needs, if not a little overkill.
I’ve never had any overheating issues with it, even when playing slightly more demanding games like Horizon Zero Dawn for many hours. Its 1080p gaming performance is very solid. It has a couple of issues with poor WiFi and Bluetooth signal but if you can work around those (usb dongles fix it) it’s a great system.
Horizon Zero Dawn. I played it to completion via proton, ran great.