Large file size problems
Dec 14, 2016
By
Nicky Piper
I have created a storyline course which contains 535 slides, with 36 videos recorded in Articulate Storyline 2 which I then used to create "step by step" slides, this has produced 450 video (mp4) files.
As such my file size is now 580MB with a compressed size of 486MB, which I cannot upload into our LMS system. Our LMS provider could do this but there would be a charge and we only have 2GB of space and lots of courses. Having read some of the discussions I have tried the following to reduce the file size:-
- Closing the file and doing Save As
- Looked at compressing videos by using the web publishing option, but this only reduced by 10MB and I found our LMS wouldn't allow us to upload a web file.
- Tried importing scenes into a new Storyline file. Using File, Import and leaving all scenes selected to import in one go.
Could anyone give any advice please.
9 Replies
Is 480mb your published files size?
It is a huge course and you may want to see if you can rationalise it, I would expect the videos are a he part of this can you host them on vimeo instead?
Yes that is the published size which has been zipped. We have an internal LMS to use, so we wouldn’t be able to use Vimeo.
Nicky
Hi Nicky,
Did you also remove any unused slide masters or screen recordings? Those will also contribute to the overall file size?
Yes I have removed all unused screen recordings and done several "Save As" to ensure the file is correctly updated. No slide masters were used. I think the only option is to re-write the course, with only a few "step by step" video processes.
This is disappointing, but we can't upload these size files and will have to remember for future to limit our use of video.
You could run the videos through replay to compress them a bit and then put them back in. The course is still huge with 535 slides, I wonder if you will get resume issues in your LMS, much better to split it down
That's a huge course! In fact, I used to create long, some 2 hrs long, product Admin courses in Storyline but then recently we're moving away from any large course rather going to produce smaller demonstrations and those will be loaded in some server from where the LMS can call.
Video quality issue is one which I came across while creating such large courses and trying to minimize the size of the file. I believe you need to change your design strategy with multiple courses in a single curriculum.
Yes, I have come to that conclusion, although even if split the scenes into separate courses they will still be large. So I'm presently trying to reduce the number of step by step videos and replacing with audio videos and simple slides with text. Thanks for confirming it is how Storyline works and probably better keep videos to a minimum.
What is a normal size for a course? What is the largest size you would suggest a course to be?
Hi Blue,
The "largest size" would depend on your computers ability to handle authoring it, the hosting site's bandwidth for the published output, and the speed/connection of users who are playing it back - so there isn't one standard or normal.
You're not the first to ask this though - and I've seen a few discussions that have asked a similar question. Please take a look at this thread, and also this discussion on Best Practices for Lengthy Courses. Although these are a bit older, a lot of the same ideas and concepts hold true. 🙂
Best of luck with your course!
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