video quality of web objects

Hi Stefano,

ok.

So that's the recording and output size in Captivate:

Then here is the index.html content:

Then the web object with the following settings:

And thats the output still containing these lines and I have to scroll on the window, to see the player bar.

 I have the video opened in a separate window to gain more space for the video.

Florence

You should export a flash AS2 swf file, not an AS3 swf. And use Flash player 7 version, for maximum compatibility..

Oh sorry, you're importing it as a web object in a new window, so it should go...

I don't know if that custom size in a slide can generate distortion, I would submit a case to Articulate support, or ask Brian Batt for some help on this...

Did you ever come up with a solution? I am experiencing a similar issue. I am using a web object to display videos from a third party site/source. The videos are very large though, and so they show up with the scroll bars and the user is not able to see the entire video. The quality is fine, but how can I eliminate the scroll bars so the viewer can see the entire video???

Hi there,

For "insert web object", you should set "window size" to "full".

Then open the html file of your "index.htm" file that you got from captivate, and adjust the size of the .swf file to something smaller, about 870 wide and about 640 high (it should keep the aspect correct, but if it doesn't you can figure out exact dimensions if your need them).

As for your issue Mike, you should be able to something similar by adjusting the embed object code in you embedded html.

Then relaunch/reload the captivate output.

I appreciate the thought, but you are a little over my head.

I don't know where to find or how to edit an embed html, and I am not using a captivate output so I am not sure how to reload this. I am simply using a link to a video on another site as a web object, but the videos are done in a large size (perhaps 1024X768 or so), and therefore tthey don't fit on the 720X540 screen we have to work with in Articulate.

My result looks like the last screenshot from Florence's question above where the video does not fit on screen and has scroll bars to view the rest of it. Any way to get rid of those scroll bars when I am linking directly to a video and I don't have any control over the actual source video?

Mike you can  open the web object in a new browser window instead of on the slide this could be resized, its the only way really as your videos are too large for the Studio iframe

I can do that, but it is very distracting and hard to follow in this particular case. It is basically a series of video trainings, so the TOC lists each topic and there are 10-15 videos each in succession on the slides. Having that many open in different windows would just not work well in this case.

Thanks for the ideas everyone.

I know this is a late response to your original question in September, but have you tried changing the compression in your preferences (Edit/Preferences) in Captivate?  We had a similar issue, and when we deselected Advanced Project Compression, it did the trick for us. 

I have your answer, but im having trouble posting.

I think I gotcha. You are using the Articulate insert web object to link directly to the video file, correct? (www.website.com/video/video.swf)

And your not linking to the page (www.website.com/video.htm). Right?

so your getting this:

when what you want is closer to this:

(ahhh, it was the html i was trying to paste in here...)

If so, you may have some simple html creation to do. I found a youtube vid that pretty much walks you through it.

Heres the link, and ill try to attach the "index.html" file that i used in my example.

http://youtu.be/7usTMsIDXpU

I am getting the scroll bars as in your first picture (assuming your post was directed at me, or maybe addresses both of our issues), but I am linking directly to the page (www.site.com/video.html). Is there a way to do that and have it show up like your second image without the scroll bars??? Whatever it is, that is just what I need.

Mike,

Are these videos open to the public? Could you post a sample link here? Or message it to me if you like, so i can look at the source to see where the direct link to the video is.

Then you could do what the youtube video does at 3:20 and beyond.

Here is one of them: http://download.reversevision.com/University/FeeScreen/FeeScreen.html

I don't have embed codes or anything so I am just having to link to that page and you can see the video is very large. What to do?

Hi Mike.

It looks like you are using Camtasia. I would recommend not inserting Camtasia movies as web objects. There are a couple of articles I would check out if I were you which outlines best practices using Camtasia and Presenter:

http://daveperso.mediaenglishonline.com/2011/03/03/articulate-and-camtasia-update/

http://daveperso.com/2008/03/23/using-camtasia-with-articulate-presenter/

Here's a screencast that outlines this process:

You may also want to take a look at this post from our old forum:

http://www.articulate.com/forums/12984-post4.html

I perhaps did not give enough info, but these are not my videos. I am merely linking to them on a third party site. I don't have the camtasia files to produce from (or this would be easy) and I don't have an embed code or any control over the actual video--I am just linking to a third party site where the video plays.

Is there anything I can control on my end that would allow it to play/display at a more friendly size?

Am I stuck with what I have or are there any other options?

Hey Mike,

Well I tried about a dozen ways, and I did find another option, but I dont think your going to like it, lol.

Short answer: I had to download the swf file, and then manually insert it.

Long answer:

I think that the problem is that the videos he made are set to not allow scale. Whether thats happening in the actionscript of the flash file, or in some javascript in the folder on the server, i dont know.

You can link directly to the .swf file that is loading in the link you posted. By using this link:

http://download.reversevision.com/University/FeeScreen/FeeScreen.swf

As you can see, when you change the size of your browser window, the video does not change with it.

If you go to: http://download.reversevision.com/University/FeeScreen/FeeScreen_controller.swf

you will see the preloader, and then that "controller.swf" loads the actual flash video "FeeScreen.swf" into itself, and that will scale.

I tried loading all those links, in a few different ways onto a slide, but none worked. The only way I got it to work was to "download" the actual .swf file and load it in with Articulate "insert flash movie". You could do this yourself by either digging into internet explorers internet temp file folder, or using an swf downloader plugin with firefox. But then you do lose the ease of just linking to the files that are already online, and you would have to do that for each video. Sorry, thats the best I could do.

Hi Mike. If you don't have any control over the movies, I would not insert them as a web object. I would recommend adding a simple hyperlink on the slide that someone can click on to view the external content. That way you don't have to worry about the movie size, etc...

Thank you both for the info.

@David: that would work, but the reason for linking to them is because they are continually updated. If I pull it down and insert it then I don't know that the user is viewing the latest content, or I am continually needing to update the course (and I am not always updated when the videos have been updated).

@Justin: that is a nice idea and might work except that I am giving credit based on them viewing each video. I suppose that I could put a link on each page still (rather than several links on the same page) and still track that way, but it doesn't seem as smooth to me and I still don't know for certain that they clicked the link, only that they were actually on that slide.

Sounds like there are limited options and although none of them are exactly what I am looking for, I may just have to come up with what will work the best and live with it. Thanks for all the feedback and insight everyone!

Mike, if you insert as a web object you have no way of knowing they watched the video either.  Because you didnt create the videos and have limited access to the files the options are limited.  I like Justin's idea

That is true, but as a web object the video plays automatically and I at least know that they were on that page while the video started playing. If it is just a link, I have no way of knowing if they take the extra step to click the link. I know I should give people the benefit of the doubt, but I find that unless it is right under their nose and happens automatically, people won't do it (for the most part).

I am actually trying to convince them to build a test to verify understanding and as the tracking method, and if I can get that to fly then I think Justin's idea is probably the way to go. I would probably build one page with a menu of links and let the user actually decide (a novel idea...) which ones to view, but convincing the stakeholders here to do it the right way is often more difficult than going out with 'their idea'...

Ahh, I was afraid the content might be updated periodically. So yes, doing it the way i suggested would be a royal pain.

If you make a page (or pages) with links, you could use something like bitly to generate a custom link that would let you track the clicks. Although you wouldnt know exactly who clicked the links, you would know that it was in fact clicked. Not good for tracking if a specific user clicked the link, but good for testing if people are clicking the links at all. But the only real way to know if the user absorbed the content, is to test them on it afterward.