Large (512 MB) Storyline file with many videos - The published draft is hanging online

Jun 16, 2016

We are in the process of creating two interactive tutorials for a state client, which has quite a bit content on options for HS Career Tech students to earn college credit for their HS coursework. There is a lot of meat in the content and instead of just text or a talking head we created animations (in after effects and GoAnimate) with voice overs to assist in keeping attention and aiding in retention. These animations (with audio narrations) run from 3 seconds for intros to several long and meaty ones that are 2-3 minutes in length. In addition there are at least two short scenario videos and 3-4 Q&A videos with real people in the modules.

At present the first module runs for nearly 25-30 minutes. The problem with the draft is that online it will hang, as the project does not load quickly enough.

Right now the videos/animations have been saved as a rather high quality before being imported into Storyline 2 and we can reduce quality for a somewhat smaller file size. We just don't want the animations and videos to look poor in the finished project.

We had also thought about chunking the module up into several smaller ones, but the client wants it presented as one learning module. Is there a way to save it as several smaller files and make it appear to the viewer as just one? (e.g., linking the files....and if so how would this be accomplished to look seamless?)

Any suggestions on how to solve this issue?

3 Replies
Richard Hill

As a rule it seems the more slides(less media on each slide) the better, since the SL player constantly downloads content from the next couple of upcoming slides.  I also find that Jumping around a menu to different slides can also hang a media intensive story file, probably for the same reason. If it's hanging specifically in at one point every time, check that slide and the next two for potentially too much media.

Christie Pollick

Hi, Debra -- Thanks so much for reaching out here with your question! While I will defer to your fellow community members to share their specific ideas and recommendations, but I did want to pass along this information on how content is preloaded as Richard noted, and also some discussions on managing larger file sizes, as well:

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