Time-based comments make reviewing audio, video in Dropbox simple

Dropbox is hoping to make reviewing video and audio easier for creatives.

The cloud storage service is rolling out time-based commenting for audio and visual files starting January 24th. Dropbox says this will make reviewing creative works like marketing videos and podcasts much easier.

For example, the new system will help professionals move comments out of messy email threads and into Dropbox. Time-based commenting also makes it easy to be specific.

Comments like “There’s a popping noise about a minute into the podcast” can be replaced by a comment placed at the 0:51 mark on the audio timeline that reads “Remove popping noise.”

Users will also be able to ‘@mention’ other team members when they comment.

Further, the new time-based commenting system will allow users to adjust playback speed and scrub through 1080p video and audio previews.

Dropbox will also support multiple formats with the feature, including QuickTime, MPEG-4, MXF, MP3 and WAV. The service says size is no barrier either — unlike email, which tends to have strict attachment limits.

The new time-based commenting features are available starting January 24th on the web and iOS. Android support is coming soon. Further, anyone can add time-based comments as long as you have a Dropbox account and the file was shared by a Dropbox Professional, Business Advanced, Enterprise or Education user.

The new features come as part of Dropbox’s ongoing effort to improve its usability. Most recently, the company rolled out new image scanning tech so users could search text within images.

You can learn more about time-based commenting in Dropbox here.

Update 01/24/2019: Added a clarification regarding which users can share files for time-based commenting.