TikTok Live Glossary
26 terms covering TikTok lives, gifting, recording, and TikRec features.
- Live
- A real-time video broadcast on TikTok. Creators stream to viewers, who can join, comment, and send gifts. Lives have no fixed time limit.
- Replay
- A recording of a finished live, made available by the creator after the broadcast ends. Optional and disabled by default. Most lives have no replay.
- Room
- TikTok's internal name for a live session. Each new live generates a fresh room ID. Rooms cannot be joined after the live ends.
- Room ID
- Numeric identifier for a specific live session. Used by recording tools to fetch the stream URL. Changes every time a creator starts a new live.
- FYP
- For You Page. TikTok's algorithmic feed of short videos. Lives can appear at the top of the FYP if the algorithm promotes them.
- Gift
- Virtual item viewers send to creators during a live. Costs Coins. Creators receive Diamonds in return, which can be cashed out.
- Coin
- TikTok's virtual currency, purchased with real money. Spent on Gifts. 1 USD buys roughly 65-70 Coins.
- Diamond
- Currency creators earn from Gifts. Two Diamonds equal one Coin in value. Creators withdraw earnings in Diamonds.
- Top Gifter
- Highest-spending viewer in a live. Shown publicly on the leaderboard. Often gets pinned messages or shoutouts.
- Mod
- Moderator. Trusted viewer with permission to mute or block users in a live. Appointed by the creator.
- Battle
- TikTok LIVE Battle. Two creators face off in a live, viewers send gifts to vote. The creator with more gifts wins. Common monetization format.
- Multi-guest
- TikTok feature allowing multiple creators in one live session. Viewers see a split-screen layout.
- LIVE Studio
- TikTok's desktop streaming software. Lets creators broadcast from a PC instead of a phone.
- LIVE Subscription
- Monthly subscription tier where viewers pay a creator directly for badges, emotes, and subscriber-only chat. Similar to Twitch Subs.
- Boost
- Paid feature that pushes a live higher in the FYP for a limited window.
- Watermark
- TikTok's overlay on downloaded videos. Lives recorded from the source via tools like TikRec arrive without watermarks.
- Watchlist
- TikRec's list of TikTok creators you want to auto-record. Add a username and TikRec records every future live.
- MP4
- Standard video file format. TikRec delivers all recordings as MP4.
- FFmpeg
- Open-source command-line video tool. Used by recording software (including TikRec and the Live Recorder CLI) to capture and remux live streams.
- FLV
- Flash Video format. TikTok's live streams use FLV at the source. Recorders convert FLV to MP4 for compatibility.
- Source quality
- The original resolution and bitrate of a TikTok live, before any re-encoding. Cloud recording captures source quality. Screen recording does not.
- Telegram Stars
- Telegram's built-in digital currency. Used in TikRec to unlock past recordings from other users' watchlists. 5-50 Stars per recording, depending on duration.
- Watchlist recording
- A recording made because a creator was on someone's watchlist. Free to that user. Made available to others via the public archive.
- Past recording
- A recording from someone else's watchlist. Available to unlock with Telegram Stars from the TikRec archive.
- Auto-record
- TikRec mode where recordings start automatically when a watched creator goes live, with no manual intervention needed.
- Subathon
- Stream format where viewer subscriptions or gifts extend the live. Subathons routinely run 24+ hours.