File size of software simulations

Jun 04, 2013

Greg Cannon
By Greg Cannon

I've got a very short piece of software simulation (a website for what it's worth) amounting to 22 slides in Try It mode. On a few of the slides I've inserted a brief (30-40 seconds) voice over. I've published the file (standard quality) just to see how big it is in published format and am horrified to see that it is 15.9MB.

The Moodle LMS I use has been set [not by myself] to have a file upload limit of 5MB so I changed the quality of the graphics to 10% (lowest) and reduced the quality of the audio and video to the lowest settings to see what the impact would be...the published output was 14.9MB. A drop of only 1MB...so what is it about the file that causes it to be SO big?

I then thought, perhaps I could delete the actual video files used to create the Try It slides and just keep the Try IT mode slides but you are unable to as [logically] "they are in use". 

Then I went into the story_content file to view the published outputs, I sorted the files by size and played back the largest (3.45MB) .flv files in vlc media player. It was a scroll action (multiple, frequent changes of 'screen) which I appreciate is going to be larger than a click action but still seems very large.

My questions then, are these: can I post-compress these .flv files? Even if I do what impact can I expect this to have on their size? Are there other ways of reducing the size of these simulations (apart from only recording a smaller area of the screen!)? Or should I just demand that my upload limit is set to something more realistic? Or should I just give up on the idea of using Storyline for software simulations?

Any advice much appreciated!


Cheers,

Greg

4 Replies
Greg Cannon
almost 11 years ago06/04/13 at 7:06 am (UTC)

Just to add some perspective here - the actual video is about 10 seconds long and is 15 MB. Apparently you can record up to 2 hours in one go using Storyline which sounds really good, although not if you're left with a file that is 15 MB x 6 x 120 = 10,800 MB...

I am concerned that I'm doing something VERY wrong as no-one else seems to be having a similar issue?!

UPDATE: I tried to post-compress the .flv file and did manage to reduce the size of it by a factor of 10. However it wasn't at all legible so not any use. I tried deleting all the scroll screencasts and replacing with a simple click hotspot and this helped reduce the file size to 9.16 MB - so a reduction of almost 6 MB replacing 4 drag actions.

I then took this idea a stage further and deleted all of the screencasts and replaced them with jump to next slide triggers on the hotspots. When published the same 22 slides are only about 6 MB so a reduction of a further 3 MB. The largest assets are now the jpeg screenshots of the website at about 250kb each - still pretty hefty. Now I could of course edit these but I've frankly already spent far too long on 10 seconds worth of video, and I'm still not under my Moodle 5 MB upload limit for one eighth of my recorded content...

I guess my point, for what it is worth, is that the way Storyline handles screen recordings doesn't appear to be at all efficient...is this being looked into at all for an update/version 2?

Thanks,

Greg

Peter Anderson
almost 11 years ago06/04/13 at 9:13 am (UTC)

HI Greg, 

The only thing I can recommend at this time, is to go ahead and share your input directly with our development team. I don't believe there's anything on the radar to reduce the size of published screen recordings, but I think it would be unusual if you were the only one being squeezed by your LMS's upload limits, so it might be worth looking into. 

And for your piece of mind, I too get the same approximate size file when publishing simple screen recording demos of web browsing, so it's nothing you're doing wrong on your end

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
10 years ago03/27/14 at 9:10 am (UTC)

Hi Claudine,

You may also want to look for other ways to reduce your file size such as:

  • deleting extra slide masters not in use
  • removing screen recordings that you're not using (they're all saved up in the "Record screen" drop down arrow)
  • If you use an image consistently throughout your course, add it to a slide master instead of inserting it onto each slide.

Hope those suggestions help, and please let us know if you need anything else! 

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