One of our favorite cloud-based file storage options is Google Drive, which is made even more appealing to users of the ecosystem by its smooth integration with Workspace. Thanks to the sharing features included into the Android share sheet, uploading movies to Google Drive is as simple as it gets. Though the video player may not appear much different from the video streaming site, it hasn’t had the same level of playback as YouTube, another service owned by Google. Recently, the Google Drive team unveiled a few enhancements for Drive, one of which aims to improve the app’s poor video playback.
Uploading movies to Google Drive
Google discusses the integration of DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) transcodes for movies uploaded to Drive in a blog post on the Workspace blog. According to Google, DASH transcodes allow for adaptive bitrate playback, which may provide movies with a higher or lower resolution based on variables like the local network’s quality.
It is said that overall, this will lead to noticeably faster “join times,” which measure how long it takes for the video to start playing once it is clicked. According to Google, re-buffering has also been reduced for both regular and high-speed playback. From now on, any newly uploaded videos to Drive will be subject to DASH transcodes. Google promises to upgrade any already-existing videos in Drive before the end of the year.
The Workspace blog has announced the release of a second feature: enhanced search filters for the Google Drive applications for iOS and Android devices. These revised filters were originally visible to us in October on Google Drive, but they were obscured by flags. In the meanwhile, these filters—as well as others—were added to the online version in November. At last, Google is starting to integrate these new filters into the mobile Drive app.
However, the filters are currently limited to iOS and are tagged as “coming soon” for Android without specifying when exactly. However, the manufacturer promises to provide an update as soon as it’s prepared for Android cellphones.
When these new filters become available, touching the search bar will provide three filters: People, Type, and Modified. Filtering search results based on file type (documents, photos, movies, etc.) and recency is made simpler with the Type and Modified tabs. The People tab shows files from your recent contacts. Customers of Workspace and individuals with personal Google accounts may access the filters on a broad scale, according to Google.
