Video Quality bad when publishing in Storyline

Feb 26, 2013

Hi,

I have an eLearning module I created in Storyline. When I insert a video clip and publish it, the video is a horrible quality, yet when I view the video clip through Windows Media Player, it's crystal clear. I've tried inserting as a .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, and .MP4 (recommended) and even changed the quality settings as suggested on this blog. Is that a hiccup with Storyline? The original file was a AVCHD Video. The slide size was 768x 576. Any suggestions would be appreciated as I have a project deadline on this and need these two video clips. They are simply an intro slide and conclusion slide...not large files at all. Are their specific video file guidelines I should be following? I searched the blogs and tried everything that's been suggested...changing the file quality to a higher level, etc. Still doesn't change the quality of the video after publishing. Thanks much!

33 Replies
Christine Hendrickson

Hi Deborah,

There's a few things that may be impacting the quality of the video. Without seeing it, however, if's difficult to say. You did mention that you tried changing the file quality, but I'm not sure what method you used for this. Did you do this through the publish options? I know it sounds strange but it has been known to improve video quality in the past.

It'll look like this:

In the meantime, and I'm not sure if this will work for you, what you could try to is record the video from within Storyline. This way you'll know for sure that the video is definitely a supported video and the compression should work quite well. You could play the video on its own and simply create a single in-slide screen recording through Storyline.

If that doesn't work, or you want to stick to the original video, we'd be happy to take a look at what's happening with the quality.

You'll be able to attach the .STORY file, or the original video file on the second page of the following form:

Articulate Support -Submit a Support Case

Please be sure to include a description of your issue. Please also include the URL for this thread in the form. Also, please share the case number with me. You're welcome to do so here, or in a private message. This way I can follow the progress of the case and update this thread.

Christine Hendrickson

Hi there, Jack! Welcome to the community!

Can you give us a little more information about the quality issues you're experiencing? Have you already attempted to adjust the quality options before you publish your course? If not, you may still be using the default publish quality options.

Also, what method are you using for publishing (Web, LMS, CD, etc.)?

What content in your course appears to be lower quality when you're viewing after publishing? Is it media, images, text, etc.?

If you could provide some additional information, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks very much!

Christine

Tom Kenny

I have a similar problem to the one Jack described above. Adjusting in the "publish quality" pop-up doesn't seem to improve the quality of the inserted video very much at all. The video inserted was HDV 720p. Any ideas?

Gerry Wasiluk

Sometimes the codecs used to create the original videos can cause issues. Not all codecs are "equal."

If you need something right now, this workaround may work. Get a free program like Format Factory and convert your original video into another format. Try converting it to something like an AVI or WMV or MOV. See if that converted video works better with Storyline. Make sure to adjust the quality in Storyline as Christine suggests.

You can also try not resizing the video on the Storyline slide. Make sure it is in the size that you need for Storyline before you import it into Storyline.

Curtis Rogers

+1 on Deborah's comment. The video quality is horrible when exporting to Web or CD even with all custom settings set to their maximum values. Video is terribly pixelated. It was 1080P when it was inserted and it was very pristine. It looks perfect in the preview. Now it looks like I filmed it with a Dora the Explorer video camera. If something cannot be done to fix this, Storyline is of no value to me. What am I to do?

P.S. I do not want the content in YouTube, nor do I want to make it a web object. I want the content to be embedded within the player.

John Matthews

Justin Grenier said:

Hi, guys!

Although we generally don't recommend (and can't support) modifying published output, Mike Enders has put together a nifty work-around for this issue:

...hope it's helpful!


I appreciate that you dont support this option, but we're having similar problems with MP4 video quality (its generally awful and overcompressed).

I tried the above method and all I get is audio - its recognising the new file but not playing the video.

John Matthews

Jack Dillon said:

Why does it preview at a higher quality than the final production? Also, why did you decide that users couldn't be trusted to make intelligent decisions regarding video quality vs. file size?


Also, another vote for this. If we could simply set the video (and audio) quality manually it would be a great help.

Sam Leon

Justin Grenier said:

Hi, guys!

Although we generally don't recommend (and can't support) modifying published output, Mike Enders has put together a nifty work-around for this issue:

...hope it's helpful!

I am having the same problems with articulate storyline.

I publish a video and it turns really bad quality. I tried to do the tutorial above and change to mp4 but I am having the same problem. It only has the sound not the video.

Is there any solution to bad quality videos in storyline? Otherwise I will have to get another course authoring tool.

Justin Grenier

Good Afternoon, all.

There is always a bit of optimization performed to make for smooth delivery to learners. At this time, an option of "No Compression" is not supported. If you'd like to see an option where videos are left untouched, please submit a feature request.

In the interim, there are two possible workarounds you could pursue:

  1. You could upload your video to a service that allows uncompressed formats (such as YouTube or Vimeo), then use our Insert Video from Website feature to embed the video.
  2. You could insert your source video into your published output by following the unsupported method in Mike's Screenr above. Please note that using this technique will improve the quality but the loading time will be longer.

Please let us know if you need anything else, and have a great day!

OWEN HOLT

Looking for suggestions. I like Mike's work around but.... not sure it will work for me without a few additional steps.

I have a series of short animation videos that were created in PowerPoint with a 5 Inch X 5 Inch slide dimension. For these to be usable in my StoryLine project, they have to be set to 174 px X 174 px. Works fine but because of the compression at publication, the short animations loose quality and look fuzzy.

How do I start by converting my larger dimension (5 inch X 5 Inch) WMVs down to a smaller 174 px X 174 px MP4 so I can replace the published output videos with these new files? Am I just going to have to "suck it up" and recreate all of these from scratch in PowerPoint at a smaller size? If so, can anyone tell me what 174px is in inches so I can size the PowerPoint canvas correctly?

byron tik

LOCK PLAYER AT OPTIMAL SIZE

Hi Guys

just a reminder that the videos will look a lot better if the player is locked to the optimal size, if not (scale to fill browser window) the video is dynamically scaled and therefor looking a lot less sharp when enlarged.

Thanks for the temporary work around solution above we will give it a go.

Regards

Byron

chris King

Workaround worked, but it's a pain if you need to swap out multiple videos. I generally optimise my videos in Adobe Premiere and the rsult has a lot of fine tuning options. It's a shame that Articulate does not have a no compression option, or even better an option to autodect the connection speed (or let the user choose) in the browser and offer a suitably compresed file. Added a request for this feature!

curtis settino

Hello All,

Still not clear as to whether or not the first post was answered directly.

"I have an eLearning module I created in Storyline. When I insert a video clip and publish it, the video is a horrible quality, yet when I view the video clip through Windows Media Player, it's crystal clear."

I'm having the same problem.

Output my original MP4 on a Mac (FC7 as MP4)

Copied it to a PC

Inserted the video (actual size) into SL

Publish settings at default

Thanks

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Curtis and welcome to Heroes!

As Christine and Justin previously mentioned in this thread, there is video compression that occurs during publish and you can change the quality settings prior to publishing to increase that quality. With that being said, it may not match your original video's quality. There is also the method included in the video above by Mike Enders that would allow you to replace your published output with the original video and it's quality would carry through unchanged.

If you'd also like to chime in and share your thoughts on a "no compression" option for videos within Storyline please feel free to share your thoughts here in the form of a feature request.

Jordan McClure

Hi all,

I tried Mike's workaround last week with great success. I was excited, as the blurriness in text during throughout the software demonstration was irksome.

However, I went through the same process this week, and for whatever reason, the quality of the video is no longer improving. If I open the video file up on it's own, it's clearly a higher resolution compared to the video in my project after performing a post-publish replacement.

Any idea why I would have varying success?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jordan,

I can't think of a specific reason why that would stop working. I'm curious if in between the two weeks, did you change anything else on your system? Storyline did recently release an update - (update 6 on July 24) although I haven't heard from anyone else yet that it impacted this workaround.