Chrome HTML5 Choppy Video Playback

Jan 23, 2019

I have a SL360 presentation that contains an mp4 video that plays incredibly bad on Chrome.

However it plays fine on Firefox and MS Edge.

View this url in both browsers and see for yourself: https://bo.training/wp-content/uploads/samples/BOT-Greenleaf-Retirement-Guide/story.html

I just published that file today using the January 22, 2019 upgrade to SL360.

I also tested this url on multiple computers and internet connections and the issue appears in Chrome everytime.

Now I realize Chrome changes things and has been causing issues since v65+ but at the same time there is clearly something going on in SL360 output that is not working right with Chrome.

I can't run a business if I have to tell clients sorry you can't use Chrome.

Please, you must have your developers solve this Chrome video issue once and for all and fast. This should be Articulate's top priority before rolling out anything else. 

 

 

23 Replies
Robert Westfall

Thanks both of you for checking it out, when you say it plays fine are you saying that there is no choppiness in Chrome during the video introduction part?

And that it plays smoothly and just as well as in FF and Safari?

It's hard to test on other devices, but the fact that t plays so well on my computer with Edge and FF but not Chrome just doesn't make sense to me.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Robert,

I also didn't experience any choppiness, but I did take a quick video to demonstrate for you. I posted it here to Review, and you'll see I'm on the latest Chrome version as well. 

If you're only running into this in Chrome, have you also tested in an Incognito window or tried disabling any extensions running in Chrome that could be causing interference?

Robert Westfall

Thanks Ashley,

I have viewed it in Chrome incognito and on multiple devices. On two devices the playback was choppy and on the third it was pretty smooth. Note these were all Windows computers.

The fact that it seems to not be happening on Macs or on all Windows computers, makes me wonder what Windows/Chrome issue there may be causing this.

It may be something beyond SL360 to solve, but the inconsistency does cause concern, I hate to have clients think the quality of our work was the issue. 

Robert Westfall

Ok, that makes more sense. My main concern was if there is some HTML5 video playback issue still occurring in Chrome related to SL360 output. If there is then I hope it is being addressed. If on the other hand this is isolated to my files then sure a workaround such as Vimeo would work fine. Thanks Phil.

At this point I will test additional projects produced with the SL360 version updated this week and see what happens...thanks all.

 

Alison Hass

Hi Robert and others!

I recognize this thread is a couple months old but one of our clients is experiencing the same issue when trying to play screens with videos using Chrome. I haven't been able to replicate but a couple others on my team have seen this behavior, too. 

Did anything concrete come out of this thread for you, Robert? Did you ever find any workarounds (other than mandating which browsers learners should use)?

Thanks for any suggestions! 

Alison 

Marty Doupe

Hi,

So I'm experiencing exactly same issue with every mp4 video in my course. They all lag when the course is run using Chrome. I do a review of the course using Firefox and Edge - and not only do the videos run smoothly - all the animations and screen transitions run faster/smoother too. 

I can't tell my entire audience of learners to not use Chrome. So what's the solution? 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Marty,

What version of Chrome and Storyline are you using to view these courses? 

It doesn't look like we've identified an issue with Chrome and video content across all users, but it's isolated to specific environments and how Chrome is caching those videos within a browser session. If you'd like to share your course here with us, happy to test it out in Chrome to see if it's a systemic problem. Also, feel free to share privately with our Support Team

Thomas Doty

I'm having the same issue with Rise360.

Videos start out very choppy, but then smooths out, UNLESS:

1) the cursor is hovering over the video. Then it stays choppy.

-or-

2) the video is not centered in the window. Being off center also causes it to be choppy.

That is in preview mode or in exported lessons. In edit mode, it's choppy all the time.

For what it's worth: the audio isn't affected.

This is in chrome v.75.0.3770.142

Windows 10 Home.

No issues in other browsers.

 

Muhammad Bilal

Well, is it resolved or not yet? I can still see the video being so choppy on the normal or incognito mode of chrome. I know the video works fine on mac and other browsers but using Google Chrome on Windows 10, the video is not worth seeing.

I hope there is a solution as we want to upgrade from Storyline 3 to 360 but if the videos are like this then we may look elsewhere.

Thanks for any input

M

Ren Gomez

Hi Muhammad,

I'm sorry to hear you're running into this issue as well! I've opened a case on your behalf to connect you with a support engineer.

They can provide tailored help in sorting out what may be causing choppy video to appear in Chrome. Can you share the .story file with the video to your personal upload link here?

We'll get notified immediately to begin testing and reach back out with next steps!

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