Improving Dropbox video preview quality - thinking outside the box

[Robert K JSS Tech]

The poor quality of the Dropbox transcoded preview has been discussed over the years, particularly between 2015-2017.

Over the last six years, internet speeds have changed remarkably and online streaming is now commonplace.

So our clients are unforgiving in their distaste for the Dropbox preview product.

Dropbox has made it plain, that as far as they are concerned the solution is just download. However many many clients want to be sure the product is right for them before they download.

Thinking outside the box, if we load two versions of each video, one optimised for preview, of smaller file size etc.(so clients can be sure its the product they want- but we can be certain that for instance, the preview won't be out of audio/vision sync)  and the full res version for them to download.

Surely the Dropbox engineers who work on the auto transcoding know the optimum specs for the preview file?

Can that please be shared with your clients? ( after all we are supposedly on the same team) 

[Matt G.12]

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. 

[www . c.]

Mark Mc:

1. I will not 2MB/s sync, upload, and download for 120 EUR/year. (or 100EUR) I will at least 10MB/s.
2. I will High Quality video stream.2K at least. Is this problem? Ok. 
  A) Limit views to 10 / day.
  and
  B) Set price for this option: 10 EUR / 100 view or/and 10 EUR / X GB.

Just start thinking.

[Mark]

Just start thinking.

Huh?

[www . c.]

Think = 2 MB/s is slow. 😉

[Rich]

please give us the possibility to turn off the video preview

Change the ?dl=0 in the link to ?dl=1. The user will be prompted to download the video instead of seeing the preview page.

I find this to be a pretty poor service delivery.

Dropbox is not a delivery or streaming service. It's a file synchronization service with some additional features. If you need content delivery, use a service that's meant for that.

I really don't see why Dropbox can't partner with a streaming service

Like they did with Vimeo?

or upgrade their back end to fix this. 

This is by design, since they're not a streaming or content delivery service. As such, it's not broken and doesn't require a fix.

[Mark]

Think = 2 MB/s is slow

It is. But thats up to your ISP and not Dropbox. 

[Matt G.12]

Rich.R - it's easy to be defensive. Video transfers to client is a common dropbox use in my industry. If I worked at Dropbox (or for any service) I would want it to be the best it can be and not just make excuses. 

Also if they are partnered with Vimeo then why isn't this better. Vimeo's streaming is great. 

Thanks for the note on changing the url.

[Stefanie]

Hi all,

Just wanted to thrown in an explanation about video preview quality. Dropbox actually transcodes several versions of your video for you with different level of quality. Depending on your internet connection at the time of the request, Dropbox will serve the preview in the most appropriate quality. We don't want to serve a very high quality preview if you are on a flaky internet connection because it would take a very long time for the video to buffer. This is why if you're on a slow internet connection, you may see a lower quality preview.

Like Mark also pointed out before, please keep in mind that these are only previews of your videos. Happy to take your feedback back to our product managers and let them know you'd appreciate having a banner/button asking the recipient to download in order to get the file in its original quality.

Best,

Sofia

[Haakon G.1]

Thanks for chiming in Sofia, that might help a little:) My customers usually don't want to download, so it would be better to have an "HQ" button enabling users to force high quality playback at their own peril. In my ideal world opening a video would look like this:

[Stefanie]

Thanks Haakon,

Let me forward this to our video infra PM.

Thanks!