Better downloads for subscribing customers

#1

Hello,
I understand how making videos easy to download could impact subscriber revenues, but as a subscriber who has to download a day worth of videos, I find this incredibly frustrating.

  1. The iOS app keeps crashing on my iPhone X (Canary version 2.15.1) everytime I add a note.
  2. Videos are slow to process before I can download, I don’t understand why I can see them straight away, but I cannot download them.
  3. Video download is in the foreground, why is this not done in the background

So here is the feature request: Bulk operations on the videos from https://my.canary.is/ for paying subscribers.

Thanks & regards,
Daniel

#2

Hey @ddacunha,

Can you clarify exactly what steps you are taking here? I do not have the same issues in my app with comments.

This processing time occurs because videos are not stored locally on your iPhone, they are stored on Canary servers. This processing time allows them to be retrieved and prepared for download.

I agree that downloading would benefit from being in the background, however, in my experience the time that takes the longest is the processing. Usually with a. strong connection, the download takes only seconds and is ready to view right after. Is this not the case for you?

#3

Can you clarify exactly what steps you are taking here? I do not have the same issues in my app with comments.
On a bookmarked video which Download as previously been requested

  1. Tap the three dots on the top right corner
  2. Tap Download Video
  3. Enter the following Note “D” then tap Post
  4. Application crashes systematically

I agree that downloading would benefit from being in the background, however, in my experience the time that takes the longest is the processing. Usually with a. strong connection, the download takes only seconds and is ready to view right after. Is this not the case for you?
I am in a situation where I have to download a single day worth of videos, that is about 100 of them.

  1. The connection is strong, it’s a 1Gbps, wifi is 802ac
  2. Going to 100 videos requesting download is painful
  3. Downloading 100 videos and waiting “a few seconds” is painful
  4. I have no way to track which video I have already downloaded since the application systematically crashes when adding a note

As a paying member, I wish it would be easier to download more than just a few videos.

#4

I just tested that out and was able to confirm that crash as well. I am tagging @DaveF and @maciej so they can put in a note to engineering to fix it. (Confirmed in BETA as well)

#5

I am just done downloading the 88 videos I had to process. It took me 1h30m of constant attention to do that. That is tedious.

#6

Another bug:
1/ start downloading a video
2/ let the phone lock itself while the video download (iPhone X lock in 5s if you are not looking at it)
3/ Unlock phone
4/ Down fails with an error message: “There was an issue communicating with the server. Please try again later”

#7

Another bug:
1/ Be on another timezone, e.g.: GMT+8
2/ Tap on Today to select another date
3/ Select last Sunday from previous week
4/ You are actually presented with the videos from the following day (Monday)

#8

Thanks guys, I too was able to reproduce the crash when posting a comment. We’ll get that addressed.

As for the process to download videos - I definitly agree that there is room for improvement here. Unfortunately due to the way our system works, exporting a video from it is more complex that one would think. We have some ideas to make things faster and easier that we hope to implement in the future.

Dave

#9

It took me a few hours of manual work to export a single day of data, you may want to consider that you are in breach of Article 20 paragraph 1section b of GDPR.
Article 20 - Right to data portability
1.(b) the processing is carried out by automated means.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679