Improving Dropbox video preview quality - thinking outside the box

Is there a way to disable online playback?

No, but you can change the link that you send them so that they're only presented with a download. Change the ?dl=0 at the end of the link to ?dl=1 and it will force a download.

You are a lifesaver.  Thank you so much!

Robert is correct. Dropbox don't modify your original files. Just share the link with the 1 at the end and your clients will be forced to download the video.

Okay.  I tried changing ?dl=0 to ?dl=1.    

That link immediately initiates a download.  

But there are two problems: 

1. The download arrives as a .zip file.  Unless the user is set up to deal with that, it just results in more confusion and alienation.

2. In fact, when I tried decompressing the .zip file, I was told the file was unplayable.  

Added note: When I tried to create a link of only the one video file, the URL did not have ?dl=0 at the end.  So I created a link for the entire folder, which did create a URL ending in ?dl=0.  Even though the folder contains only one file, the result was a .zip file.  Is there a way to create the forced-download URL of a single file, at the file level?

why is low res? I pay 9.9 EUR for this useless stream?

we are Rober S in 2016 not in 2000. 

And we are still using a file syncing service rather than a file video hosting one. 

As Robert has repeatedly said, Dropbox doesnt release roadmaps and if I'm totally honest its not something I can see happening - especially with them recently tightening up on downloads and bandwidth. 

Yes, we are also struggling with this one :(

Then, if it not possible to improve the quality, please give us the possibility to turn off the video preview. Or at least put a big Download button with text "download for high resolution" under the video.

You might say: "write this in the email that you send together with the link". I often do that but 1. It looks silly and 2. The link is being sent to another coworker of my client without that text.

I also found out through a client that the video is shortened to 15 minutes when not logged in. The client thought I did a mistake with the video. 

This is really counter productive. 

I find this to be a pretty poor service delivery. Because here's what happens: 

I upload videos for FTP using dropbox. 

My client tries to watch them online because it shows up with a lovely big play button - "Why download it first? Let me just watch it." There's also no way I know of to stop this showing up. 

Then I get complaints about low quality, speed changes, video cutting off before the end. I have an unhappy client. They don't want to download it because it's not right. 

While I do try to carefully explain to client that they need to download the video before watching it this still repeatedly happens and is incredibly annoying. I really don't see why Dropbox can't partner with a streaming service or upgrade their back end to fix this.