Flash video not showing in LMS - Presenter vs Storyline

Dec 04, 2012

Hi all

I know there have been lots of posts regarding Flash video problems, but hoping someone might shed some light on what is a bit confusing for me.

We have used Articulate Presenter and Plateau LMS for 4 years with no problems. However we are upgrading Plateau from 5.8  to 6.3.5 and testing out our Articulate  Presenter courses.

I am finding that the Flash .flv videos now do not display in the newer LMS.

However I have observed :

 If I use Storyline instead of Presenter  then the same Flash  .flv videos play OK

If I import the original presenter course into Storyline then the Flash video doesnt play. However if I then manually edit the Story and delete the video and reinsert it ,then the Flash .flv video plays OK

If I have an .mp4 video rather than an .flv then the Presenter course plays OK

I have read the Guidelines for Flash and believe I adhere to all points.

I can log on to the web server and run the player.html from the server and all videos play OK, so MIME settings are OK I think?

Plateau 6.3.5 requires Flash 9.0 or above and my PC has Flash 11.5 installed.

Have tried with different browsers but that has no effect.

Can anyone shed some light on what is happening?

Thanks

Neil

5 Replies
Christine Hendrickson

Hi Neil,

Sorry to hear about the trouble you're having with this. Have you tried testing the published version outside of the LMS, to see if the issue is there? You might want to try testing it in SCORM Cloud, as noted in this blog post, and see if the videos function. If they play properly, it may be a problem with the update from the LMS.

You might also want to take a look at this article and see if the solutions help. Though the videos play from Storyline, it might be a good idea to check the MIME type information at the bottom of the article, just in case.

Also, are you using different publish settings with Presenter (HTML5, etc)?

Thanks Neil! 

Neil Bowman

Thanks Christine for your reply.

The SCORM Cloud test showed my content all working OK , so there is some combination of Articulate Presenter and LMS that is causing the error. The new LMS does display Flash .flv videos OK from Storyline but not from Presenter.

I tried publishing from Storyline without the HTML5 setting but they still worked OK. So I think I am using the same settings Presenter vs Storyline.

I dont see how MIME types could be a problem as again the .flv videos show OK from Storyline.

I seem to remember a post about the different ways/versions that Presenter and Storyline produce  their Flash video (but cannot find it again!) -wondering if that might provide a clue?

Regards

Neil

Christine Hendrickson

Good morning Neil,

Articulate Presenter does create Flash output, but the output consists of several files. You could try the alternative, which would be to embed a published Presenter course into a Storyline project with Storyline's web object feature.

If it's working in SCORM Cloud, it may be a sign that it's an issue with the LMS. If you'd like, we'd be happy to take a closer look. If you submit a case, please share the case number with me so I can follow the progress. 

Thanks again, Neil. I hope you have a great day!

Christine

Neil Bowman

Hi Christine

Yes we resolved the problem - it was caused by lack of FLV MIME type on the web/LMS server.

It was a little confusing because originally the Presenter file used embedded .flv videos which didnt display in the LMS.

When I imported them into Storyline they also didnt work, but if I deleted and re-inserted the source  .flv into the Story then they worked. I then realised that Storyline actually converted these to output as .mp4 (which was a valid MIME type).

So it appears that Storyline doesnt use FLV as an output type even though you insert a FLV  but rather converts to .MP4?

Thanks

Neil

Christine Hendrickson

Good morning Neil,

Thanks very much for the update! I'm glad to hear you were able to get it working. Yes, I just confirmed that Storyline will convert the flash videos to MP4 after they've been added to the course. Which explains a lot! Learn something new every day. 

Thanks again, Neil. I appreciate the information!

Have a great day,

Christine

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