Resolution / files size on downloaded videos varies

[Mitoids]

On the my.arlo site, is it possible to specify the resolution of files to be downloaded?

I downloaded some videos to save a couple weeks ago.  I viewed the saved files today and felt that they were very grainy.   I viewed them online and found the resolution to be better.  When I downloaded one of the files today, the file size was larger.

What's the deal?  When I download a file, I would like to save it with the best possible resolution.  Is there a way to control this through the site?

[StephenB]

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@Mitoids wrote:

I downloaded some videos to save a couple weeks ago.  I viewed the saved files today and felt that they were very grainy.   I viewed them online and found the resolution to be better.  When I downloaded one of the files today, the file size was larger.

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I've never seen this.  Can you check this on a couple more videos, and see if it happens again?

The only thing I can think of that would cause is that the initial download was somehow corrupted.

Do you happen to have USB storage (or a micro SD card) attached to your base?

[Mitoids]

Thanks.   No I don't have any storage devices or network cards attached to my cameras or base station.

I had a chat session with Arlo support today:

The support person told me that the size and resolution of downloaded files can be affected by network download speed.   I told him that I would expect this to be the case if I were streaming the files, but that downloading a file for storage should be affected by network speed--the file size is fixed and you want to download the whole thing in uncompressed format, right?   He agreed but said that he has seen this occur in the past.  I asked him to relay my feedback to product management/operations.  

I subsequently went back and redownloaded about 6 files and compared file sizes:

File sizes for all files were consistent with the original downloads except for the one that I originally identified as having a diffent size:

• When I downloaded it first on 9/7, the file was 704.6 kb. 
• When I downloaded it this mornining 9/18, the file was 843.8 kb
• When I downloaded it again this afternoon, the file was 704.6 kb

I guess I'll retry downloading some of the files late night when internet performance is usually better.  Strange.

[StephenB]

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@Mitoids wrote:

The support person told me that the size and resolution of downloaded files can be affected by network download speed.   

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That can't be right.  The cloud doesn't transcode video (and that is what it would have to do to send it at a different resolution or bitrate).  It would be helpful if it could do that on-the-fly.  It's annoying to get the "Your browser can't play 4K" message over and over.

And even if it could do that for playback, it makes no sense at all to do it on-the-fly for download.

Congestion on the uplink might well reduce the quality of the stream from the camera to the cloud.  But that's different - just normal rate control in the camera's encoder.

[Mitoids]

I agree.  So why the varying file size for different downloads of the same video?  It's strange.   I've downloaded the the same video time 5 or 6 times now, with the same downloaded file size every time except once.  The anomaly is the larger, higher quality file.

Perhaps something is being done server-side?  Does the service store multiple version of the same file and determine which one to make available based on perceived latency in the connection?

[StephenB]

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@Mitoids wrote:

Perhaps something is being done server-side?  Does the service store multiple version of the same file and determine which one to make available based on perceived latency in the connection?

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The server could in principle do that (video streaming services do a similar trick).  But there are obvious uses for that approach which they aren't using.  I gave one earlier - if you try to play a 4K clip in most browsers, you get an error.  But if they actually had a 1080p version of the same clip on the server, I'd expect them to play that instead.

Plus if you have a reasonable connection, I'd expect you to get the larger file size more often.

If you want, you could send me a downloadable link to the two files, and I could do some more analysis.  If you do that, send the link via PM (private message) using the envelope link in the upper right of the forum page.

[Mitoids]

Sure.  I can do that.  BTW, I downloaded the file in question again just now.  This time, I got the larger size file.

[Mitoids · Accepted solution]

As, I was going to upload files, I realized that I made a mistake in naming the files.  So there is in fact no variation in the downloaded file sizes.  Ugh!  

My apologies for the false assertions and for wasting people's time.

It would be nice if the site gave us the ability to define a naming standard for our downloaded files (e.g. camera name, date, time).  I know there are separate forum threads about this.  

Thanks,

Stephan