Over the last three weeks we have worked on one thing in particular: getting more of your videos to convert and play without a hitch. Here is what changed, with numbers where we measured them on Seedr itself.

More of your videos now convert

Failed video conversions fell from about 6% to about 2% between late September and mid October. In our conversion data, the failure rate was 5.9% for 20 to 26 September and 2.2% for 27 September to 12 October (more than 11,000 and about 28,000 conversions respectively).

There is no single fix behind the drop. Many engine updates were rolled out to every converter server over those weeks, covering encoder hangs, files that ended early, audio that drifted on long recordings and frames lost where a long video is split for conversion.

Converting video and audio in your Seedr storage is part of paid plans, and the highest quality you get (up to 4K, with HDR) depends on your plan: see seedr.cc/pricing.

Surround and lossless audio now converts with sound

Videos with Dolby TrueHD or Atmos, DTS-HD, PCM, FLAC or Opus audio tracks now convert with a stereo AAC track that plays in the browser and on your devices.

Previously these files could produce a video with empty audio, or fail after several attempts, sometimes only at the very end of a long 4K conversion. This is fixed on every converter server as of 12 October.

More formats convert

Older and unusual video formats now convert: VP8, MPEG-PS, MPEG-4 part 2, variable-frame-rate recordings, and edited MP4s that had lost frames.

Professional camera and studio files (MXF and IMF) now come out with correct audio, the right aspect ratio and the right ending.

Files that are truly broken are rejected in about a tenth of a second, instead of after a full conversion. You see the answer right away.

The format fixes shipped on 8 October (pro camera files) and 13 October (the rest).

Smoother playback on iPhone and Safari

On Safari and iPhone, a video that was still being converted could fail to start. The player now waits for the first part of the video and the server prepares the playlist differently, so playback starts while conversion continues. The fix also corrects the codec details we send to Safari, with a fallback (13 October).

More reliable starts, faster seeking, and thumbnails on first view

Starting a video needs a playlist from our servers. Playlist requests now wait for the first playable part of the video instead of failing early, so videos start more reliably: failed starts fell by over 90% in the first hours after the fix (13 October).

Seeking is about 60% faster when our servers are busy: we increased the read buffer our servers use to cut video into parts (12 October).

Thumbnails appear on first view. Before, most thumbnails were missing the first time you opened a folder; now nearly all of them show. Video thumbnails are now created as soon as the file lands in your storage (12 and 13 October).

Need help?

Have a video that still will not play? Send us the file name. Write to support@seedr.cc.