Video on cloud drives: previews are transcoded, originals are not
Upload a video to the cloud, hit play online, and the quality looks mediocre — so you suspect "the drive compressed my video". In fact the drive holds two copies: the original byte-for-byte, and the transcoded preview you just watched.
The two-copy reality
After upload, a cloud drive holds two things: the original (saved byte-for-byte; a download matches the upload exactly) and the preview (a platform-transcoded stream-friendly version with reduced resolution and bitrate). Online playback serves the preview — its mediocre quality says nothing about the original.
The design is experience-driven: streaming the original demands high bandwidth, so platforms transcode a lightweight copy for instant playback. The cost is decoupling — the blur, blocks, or gray cast in the preview may not exist in the downloaded original at all.
Where people get burned
Judging footage by the online preview is the classic mistake: shoot, upload, watch the preview, conclude "it is blurry", delete and reshoot — while the original may be perfectly fine. The correct move is downloading the original to check locally, or verifying with a local player tool.
Share links are the second trap: recipients see the preview version too — a carefully compressed master looks mediocre in their browser. For important deliveries (client review, team sign-off), tell them to download the original, or send the file directly through a file channel.
The right posture
Treat the drive as a warehouse and courier, not a screening room: store originals for footage and masters, do all quality judgment and screening locally. Compress large files before upload — transfer time drops and the recipient download improves.
The discipline for important footage: the cloud is one off-site backup, and the local master must exist. Cloud services have quota policies and account risks; footage that exists only in the cloud is footage with no guarantee. Originals are the quality ceiling — multiple storage copies, processing on duplicates, is the floor of asset management.