A few days ago, someone asked me some questions in regards of streaming video through the online “DropBox” service. The question asked was why files created with DVD Catalyst Free 2.0 would stream if they were uploaded to the DropBox service, but files created with DVD Catalyst 3 did not.
As it turns out, the “AlbumArt” feature recently implemented in DVD Catalyst Free actually enables the streaming flag as well, and because this is not enabled by default in DVD Catalyst 3, it needs to be enabled for it to work. (Global Settings > Conversion: “Enable streaming for PC”)
After playing with the DropBox service myself to figure out what was actually happening, both the user who asked about it and myself figured it would be interesting for other users to provide a bit more information about using DropBox for streaming your videos.
If you have read the article about our MP4 Streaming Server application, you are probably aware that it takes a bit of work to get things set up. Things like your upload speed, quality of the files, and lets not forget that your computer needs to be on all the time for you to be able to access your videos.
With DropBox, things are a bit easier to do.
Step 1: Visit the DropBox website to create an account and to download the client application
Step 2: After downloading and installing the client application you have to add video files to the DropBox folder (by default this is called “My Dropbox” and is located in your My Documents folder)
Very important, as mentioned in the MP4 Streaming Server article, the files need to have streaming enabled, otherwise the files will download completely to your Android device before it starts playing the video.
Step 3: The DropBox program will upload the files you added to the folder to the website. This can take a while, depending on your upload speed.
Step 4: Once all the files are uploaded, you can visit the DropBox website on your Android Phone using the web browser, log in using the account information you provided, and start watching your videos.
The whole process is a lot easier than setting up your own streaming solution. the MP4 Streaming Server, or programs such as Orb all require a bit more work to get things working right, however, because you are using an online service, there is a limitation.
A free account is limited with only 2GB of available space total. You can increase this for free by using a referral link, which gives you an additional 256MB per sign-up up to 8GB total. This does not give you room for a lot of videos. You can upgrade to 50GB or 100GB for a decent price though.
Summary:
If you are looking for an easy way of accessing your video content on the go, DropBox is very easy to use, however, if you want access to your entire collection of video files, streaming solutions that use your own computer such as MP4 Streaming Server or Orb would be a better way to go.
