iTranslated by AI
I Built a macOS Video Player App to Stream Videos from Dropbox
I created a video player that can play up to 9 videos simultaneously stored on Dropbox!
Why I built it
When downloading live stream archives or YouTube videos, video files accumulate quickly. Once that happens, I want to organize them by deciding which ones to keep, delete, or watch later, but opening and checking videos one by one is quite tedious.
That's why I wanted an app that could play multiple videos simultaneously, allowing me to browse and sort through them efficiently.
While I could store video files on my local file system, that requires backups and makes it difficult to manage them across multiple PCs. That's why I keep my videos on Dropbox. By storing them there, I can stream the videos via the API. It's very convenient because I don't have to download everything locally.
It costs money, but cloud storage is incredibly useful. It's the best.
Technology Selection
The app is built using Electron.
Initially, I was using Tauri. However, on my development PC, there was an issue with video codec support, and I couldn't play videos encoded in AV1.
For this app, I wanted to prioritize playing various video formats natively, so I switched to Electron, which bundles Chromium. With Electron, I can utilize Chromium's video playback capabilities, making it easier to support a wider range of video formats.
Challenges Faced
At first, I was building it as a Chrome extension.
However, when streaming multiple videos simultaneously, it hits the browser's limitations on concurrent connections. In practice, when playing 9 videos at once, some of them would stutter.
To bypass the concurrent connection limit, I rebuilt it as a desktop app instead of a Chrome extension by setting up a local proxy within the app. As a result, the stuttering during video playback was resolved, and it also became easier to handle communication with the Dropbox API and video streaming processes within the app.
Feedback requested!
Since it's still brand new, I'd love to hear your thoughts after trying it out 🙇 If you have any use cases, complaints, or features you'd like to see, please let me know here:
You can find the app here:
That's all.
Discussion