Need some video advice

Hi Catherine:

My impression when developing for mobile is that when you add audio and particularly video, you will need to compromise somewhat, and ensure that you have a slightly different, more appropriately-sized video file for your platform.

While I have yet to build a truly mobile tablet/phone project using Articulate Storyline, I've had some success using 3GP video files using past versions of Adobe Captivate for mobile courses.

I am doubtful that you will have much luck using larger, more conventional PC-oriented formats such as MP4, MPG, WMV, AVI, etc on mobile, but I've heard some of my developer friends say they've been able to hack/solve this problem by scaling the resolution/play quality down somewhat.

EDIT: The prevailing opinion seems to be that MP4 is the resulting published output from any project, whether it be Flash/HTML 5, or Mobile, so I would suggest using either scaled MP4s or perhaps MOVs as your source format.

Hope this helps!

-Mark

Hi Catherine, 

You may find that videos expand to fill the screen when viewed in mobile Safari on iPhones.

This is expected behavior. Mobile Safari automatically scales videos to fit the screens of smaller devices, such as iPhones. (See Apple's developer documentation for details.)

If you need to avoid this behavior, we recommend viewing courses with videos on larger screens, such as iPads, laptops, and desktop computers. Or, create a simplified version of the course that doesn't include videos for iPhone users.

As far as the Android version, could you share more about what's happening? Can you confirm that you're using the supported browsers as described here?

Hey Catherine. One other thing you might want to try is streaming the video through a service. I've used Vzaar but there are others, like brightcove. I had to do this for a client recently because of the same issues you're experiencing. And as Mark pointed out scaling down the videos helps tremendously. We ended up with our 1280 x 720 videos at a bitrate of 900 Kbits. Works really well in my experience. 

Streaming does have some caveats, however. If you want to time things to the timeline they will work independently of the video timeline. If you want to lock down the next button until the video is complete you'll either have to fudge it by dragging the timeline in SL to the same length as the video (comes with its own set of usability issues) or use the streaming service's API and use javascript to listen for the end of the video to launch your triggers. 

What is interesting is that I actually tried the streaming video idea
through youtube, but maybe I need a different service. I uploaded the video
to youtube and got a tinyurl to put on as a web object. It does the same
thing where it flashes black for about 15 seconds and then starts the
video. (This is what it does on Andriod. iPhone is the same as everyone has
described.)

Hi Catherine,

Thanks for sharing that update and a bit more information about what happens on the Android version of the video. I do see that it's something our team is investigating where videos can flash a black screen for a few seconds at the start of the video, but I haven't heard it taking as long as 15 seconds. What Android device are you testing on? Is this in the Chrome browser that you're seeing it? Perhaps do you have a sample course you could share with us here? If you'd prefer to share it privately you can also send it along here. 

Hi i am having the same problem. Using Samsung Galaxy Tablet - i do not want them to have to download the articulate app as our client is very conscious of protecting material.

When a video plays - it goes black for a few seconds then turns to white and plays fine.

Any ideas? We are not using a LMS it is just exported for web.

Many thanks

Jenny

Hi Jenny,

I don't have any updates to share on this issue - but I do see that our team is looking into the issue where the video shows as black first and then takes a few seconds to play. This is seen in Chrome on Android tablets and I don't have additional info to share at this time. Do you see it cutting off the video or just going to black and then starting? 

If you convert the video to 3GP or 3G2 it will quit doing the black screen
delay of the video.

Catherine

Ah, good to know - thanks for sharing that here Catherine! 

I just figured it out a couple of days ago, but seems to solve the problem.

Hi Catherine

Can i please ask which converter have you used?

My video is 1280 x 720 - i have tried it on adobe encoder at smaller video sizes and still getting the black at the start. (I have really bad internet at home also) I have also tried this on a free AVC video converter and the sizes offered are not right for my video and the quality is terrible.

Currently the videos are taking anywhere between 4 seconds and 15 seconds to turn from black to the video which is really frustrating! Works great on apple but my client has android.

Many thanks

Jenny 

Another issue just found - because the video is taking upto 15 seconds to load - on a few of my slides where there is integration of both video and text boxes - the player automatically goes to the next slide before the video has finished.

I can't believe what a nightmare this is! When purchasing Storyline 2 we did so because it was compatible on all devices - but from testing over the weekend trying to solve these issues i believe that its great for desktop and apple devices but rubbish for android. I also found if i skipped a few slides then my audio stopped working altogether!

Hi Jenny, 

If you'd like to share our team is also happy to take a look - but this is still with our QA team for additional review and investigation. I haven't seen it take the full 15 seconds as you mentioned, but our team can investigate further. 

You can send along a copy of the .story file to our team here.