Stop Using DropBox for Video Delivery!
Recorded webinars are great for generating leads. Especially when people can’t attend a live webinar due to timing or sudden changes to their schedules and priorities.
One way of recapturing those leads is by sharing a link to the recorded webinar. The link is shared by email with the hope that the recipients watch the video and continue on to convert to a qualified lead.
To our surprise we found many companies are using Dropbox to host their recorded webinars. Conversions from these links are low. Below, we’ll discuss why Dropbox isn’t optimal and what the best practices are.
Dropbox fails for webinar hosting in 132 seconds
Dropbox isn't the answer
Let’s take a look at another popular option, DropBox.
You’re probably thinking “this is perfect!”, no ads and viewers can easily download the videos.
Well the first problem with DropBox is that it is not a video platform!
Why is that so important? Well video is a very complex format, and in order to provide a great playback experience on all device types with various bandwidth constraints, each video must be encoded into multiple resolutions, bitrates, and codecs, and delivered in a specific streaming format that has over 100 settings configured just right.
Platforms that are purpose-built for video will usually implement this correctly, and most importantly, have appropriately factored the necessary costs into their business model.
However, platforms that try to add video playback as an afterthought, where it’s not really a core feature of the platform, discover how costly it is to do it the right way, and instead of raising their prices to compensate, they just cut lots of corners which results in a significantly diminished viewer experience.
You’ll see this a lot with file sharing platforms, content management systems, and nearly every platform that’s not purpose-built for video. DropBox is one of those platforms.
So where did DropBox cut corners? Well to start, the quality only goes up to 720p, which is only 44% the size of full HD, and 11% the size of 4K resolution. Not only that, but the bitrate is extremely low at these resolutions, making it look heavily pixelated which is a big distraction for most viewers.
So this company, Q1 Productions, delivered their webinar by sending out a share link to a DropBox folder, so that the video and any accompanying program materials could be found all in one place. Sounds reasonable, but the presentation is pretty lackluster, and the video is just zoom_0.mp4. Wow, that’s really engaging right there.
Also, it seems logistically it was easier for them to send out a public link that anyone can view, you don’t even need to be signed into an account, which is kind of ironic coming from a company that prides itself in working with private content for highly regulated industries. Not sure who’s more at fault there, DropBox for not making it easier to distribute it privately, or the company who sent it out.
So if you are looking to distract your viewers with heavily compressed video playback, and underwhelm them with the presentation, DropBox might be for you. For everyone else, let’s move on to another option.