GoToWebinar to MP4 Is Crashing

Nov 18, 2016

Deanna McMillion
By Deanna McMillion

So, I recorded a GoToWebinar session and have converted to MP4 file, which plays just fine in Windows Media Player.  Importing the same MP4 into Storyline?  It imports fine, but then crashes every time I try to preview it, either through the video editing options or by just plain Previewing the slide it's imported into.  And it's an instant crash! ;)  Not a second of the video will play!

This would be the first time I've converted a GoToWebinar file, and while I would love to just post the .story or MP4 files here for everyone...it's Company Employee Handbook stuff, so I'm stuck.

Any suggestions on what to test, check or do?  I've gone so far as to start from complete scratch, with no luck, and I just made sure I'm not behind on my Articulate software updates.  Open to ideas, if any one has a moment.

Thanks!

Deanna

6 Replies
Deanna McMillion
over 7 years ago11/21/16 at 3:43 pm (UTC)

Christine,

Sorry to hear you are  having issues, too.  Thanks for sharing your file!

I found this chat string...check out the last two comments from Trevor and Crystal.  I'm going to try converting the original GTW file again and see how it goes.  I'll let you know.

https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/importing-gotowebinar-file-and-editing

Deanna McMillion
over 7 years ago11/21/16 at 9:20 pm (UTC)

Getting the original GTW file converted again did not work.  The newly converted MP4 file crashed Storyline when being previewed.

Based on the thread linked in the comment above, I installed Windows Movie Maker.  It's a tedious process, but I was able to save the file over again.  No changes made at all, just saved it again, as the preset "For Computer" option.  And it's playing in Storyline now.  However...

The newly saved file is 168 mb versus the original file of 57.6 mb.  Why such an increase in file size?  The new file is saved as a smaller frame, and looks horrible maximized on my computer screen.  The original GTW converted file looked awesome in full screen mode playing in Windows Media Player.

Will continue playing around with the Movie Maker settings.  Glad to have a fix for it, but disappointed that I couldn't use my original MP4 file from GTW, and from perusing the forum, this seems to be a common issue,

Ali Goulet
over 7 years ago11/22/16 at 2:29 am (UTC)

Hi Deanna and Christine, 

I'm so sorry you've both encountered this, thanks for reaching out here about it! There appears to be an issue when using video files that were recorded using Webinar. Its published MP4 file only runs at 5 frames per second (common video files  runs at around 24 frames per second) which causes Storyline to crash during Preview. This is an issue that our Quality Assurance team is aware of and investigating. I don't have any updates to share at this time but I went ahead and added this thread to the report. Since you're both subscribed here, you'll receive email notifications of updates as soon as they're available. 

That being said, a quick workaround is to convert the session recording in GoToWebinar as an WMV file instead of MP4. Another alternative, as you've mentioned Deanna, is by re-encoding the MP4 output using Windows Movie Maker or Handbrake.

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