A guide to the terms you will come across while using Third Coast TV.
Watching content
Show: A creator’s channel or series. Each show has its own pages and contains episodes.
Episode: A single video or live broadcast from a creator. Episodes can be free, subscriber-only, or available to purchase.
VOD (video on demand): Pre-recorded content you can watch any time, including recordings of past live broadcasts.
Live stream: A real-time broadcast you watch as it happens, often with live chat.
Organization: The creator or studio behind one or more shows. Subscribing to an organization usually gives you access to all of its shows.
Season: A group of related episodes, often numbered. Not every creator uses seasons.
Subscriptions and purchases
Subscription tier: A membership level a creator offers, often with names like Basic or Premium. Higher tiers usually include more benefits.
Perk: An extra benefit tied to a subscription.
Subscriber-only content: Episodes that need an active subscription to watch.
Purchase: Paying once for access to a specific episode. Some episodes can also be rented.
Free content: Episodes you can watch without an account or subscription.
Gift subscription: A subscription someone buys for another viewer.
Payments
Coins: The platform’s virtual currency. You buy coins with real money and spend them to give coins to creators. One coin equals one US cent. Coins are non-refundable, non-transferable, and have no cash value.
Give Coins: A one-time gift of coins you send a creator from the support panel. The creator can rename this action on their pages.
Checkout: The secure payment step for subscriptions and purchases. You enter your payment details with the payment provider, not on the creator’s pages.
Payment method: The credit card, debit card, or digital wallet used for your purchases and recurring charges.
Receipt: The email confirmation of a successful payment.
Access terms
Gated content: Content locked behind a subscription, a purchase, or another requirement.
Unlisted: Content you can watch with a direct link but that does not appear in a show’s public listings.
Early access: Content released to subscribers before it becomes public, if it is made public at all.
The video player
Buffering: When the video pauses to load more content, usually because of a slow connection.
Adaptive streaming: Technology that adjusts video quality to your connection speed to keep playback smooth.
Quality settings: The resolution options you can choose, such as 1080p, 720p, or 360p. Higher quality needs faster internet.
Playback speed: A control for how fast the video plays, such as half speed or double speed.
Captions and subtitles: On-screen text for dialogue and sounds. Whether they are available depends on the creator.
Resolution: The pixel dimensions of the video, such as 1080p (1920 by 1080) or 720p (1280 by 720).
Frame rate (fps): How many images per second the video shows.
Live streams and chat
Chat: The real-time conversation during a live stream where viewers and the creator can talk.
Moderator: Someone with permission to manage chat, remove messages, and time out or ban disruptive users.
Concurrent viewers: How many people are watching a live stream at the same moment.
Latency: The short delay between what the creator does and when you see it.
Slow mode: A chat setting that limits how often each viewer can send messages.
Timeout: A temporary block from chatting, usually applied by a moderator.
Ban: A permanent block from chatting or commenting on a creator’s content.
Comments
Comment thread: A conversation started by a comment, with replies underneath.
Upvote and downvote: Votes that signal whether a comment is helpful, which can affect how visible it is.
Content ratings
Content rating: An age-appropriateness label that helps you decide whether content suits you: Y (all children), Y7 (older children), G (general), PG (parental guidance), 14 (ages 14 and up), MA (mature), R (restricted), and X (adults only).
Content descriptors: Short codes for specific content: D (dialogue), L (language), S (sexual content), N (nudity), V (violence), and FV (fantasy violence).
Account and privacy
Account: Your login, used across the creator shows on the platform. It is free to create.
Browser notifications: Optional alerts that can reach you when you are not on the site, used for things like new episodes or live streams.
Anonymous viewing: Watching free content without logging in. You cannot comment while anonymous.
De-duplicated: Counting distinct people rather than total actions. One hundred unique viewers means one hundred different people, even if some watched more than once.