Auto quality for Dropbox Replay

[Tokki]

Hello,

Does anyone know how to set 'auto resolution' for Dropbox Replay?

And it seems that changing the resolution doesn't actually work immediately. For example, if I lower the resolution from 1080p to 480p during playback, the resolution is still 1080p. This especially happens in the first few minutes right after the video starts.

[Nancy]

Hi again, @Tokki! Hope you’re well. 

At the moment, there’s no auto resolution option in Dropbox Replay. However, please feel free to post an idea about this here, so that others can see it and vote for it, as well. Our team regularly monitors them too and they may implement this in the future.

As for the other thing you mention, do you see any difference in your video resolution after a bit? Is this happening for all videos that you’ve saved on Dropbox Replay? 

Finally, have you tested this via different browsers to see if the behavior persists?

Let me know how it goes.

[Tokki]

Hi @Nancy 

Although Dropbox Replay doesn't have an auto-resolution option, Dropbox Reply actually changes streaming video resolution based on internet speeds even if clients fix the resolution manually. This confuses clients like the default volume level issue that I mentioned earlier.

For the first 15 seconds or so, there doesn't seem to be any difference by video resolution change. And this happens to different videos in different browsers as well.

[Tokki]

Hi @Nancy

Here's one more thing that I've just found!

Dropbox Reply drops streaming video resolution from 1080p to 720p (or lower) due to slow internet speeds, then it increases back to 1080p when there are enough pre-loading segments of data. However, at this point, sometimes Dropbox Reply stops updating buffer objects.

[Walter]

Hey there @Tokki - sorry to jump in here and thank you for the feedback on this. I've noted it down on our system - you can let us know if you have anything else to add. 

[Tokki]

Many thanks @Walter

Another issue is that Dropbox Reply doesn't seem to pick the best streaming resolution quickly based on internet speeds, especially during the first 20 seconds or so. At the beginning, the optimal resolution changes more frequently. And the resolution sometimes changes suddenly, for example from 480p directly to 1080p. This creates an inconsistent experience for users.

[Tokki]

Hi @Walter 

The initial buffer seems insufficient. I think, this causes streaming from Dropbox Replay to become unstable at the beginning.