Hello all just a quick question i am building a e learning coarse with allot of short videos about 100, but am just wondering which video format is the best to use FLV or MP4 are any other recommended video format.
I prefer to use .mov as an input format. It's less lossy and tends to be cleaner on import. Videos are converted to MP4 on export unless you're using special features (alpha channel).
No special features just regular videos, i was considering MOVs but was concerned about file size in comparison to MP4 which is a lighter format, considering that i am using allot of videos 1-5 mins in length.
But nevertheless i will give MOV a chance and see what happens thanks for your help.
Yeah, .mov is only for your input and should actually compress down to the MP4 (every video imported to SL is exported as MP4 or FLV) more cleanly than an input MP4.
For those on the Windows side , AVI and WMV has been working great for me. Use the best uncompressed format you can have and then let Storyline do the compressing.
Every so often I find a supported format that won't import right. for that I use the free FormatFactory tool and re-save it to a non-compressed format. That's always worked so far for those troublesome videos . . .
On this note, I'm working with a lot of videos right now and it's great to be able to import the best quality like .mov files into Storyline and equally great that Storyline does such a fantastic job compressing out to MP4 ... BUT ... the .story file remains huge as a result of all of those great quality .mov files having been imported. Yep I can split the file apart, etc to reduce size but I guess I'm wondering what you have found to be the best practice for quality video AND being able to continue to work with the .story file? Do you take the compressed MP4's from the published output and bring them back in as smaller files to reduce the .story file?
That would result in a re-compression of your MP4. It might save you filesize on the frontside but might actually boost your exported size while reducing output quality.
This is a tough situation and trade-off. Might be worth a feature request to have a "set source compression" or similar that compresses your videos and replaces the one in the .story file with the compressed output.
Thanks Steve, I like that idea and did put this in as a feature request along with a few other enhancements to make working with video a bit more practical.
My current client is one of the largest TV networks in Canada so video quality isn't something they will sacrafice on which is forcing me to break the course into multiple segments, even though the segments are short in terms of number of slides. It's the video, though smallish in screen size, all adds up to make the .story file sizes pretty massive, pretty quickly. Current file size for segment 1 of 10 is 600 MB...output is tiny but working with SL is difficult at that size. Wierd things are happening like the keyboard locking up, things I type type on-screen 1 letter at a time every second or so, editing text results in a variety of odd things happening from font shifts to selecting text and the wrong text being deleted, undo is not reliable, etc. If I close and re-boot I'm good for about 1 hour of basic editing but then it starts again even without adding much more to the overall file size. So I can see I'm at a limit in SL.
Thanks Steve, I like that idea and did put this in as a feature request along with a few other enhancements to make working with video a bit more practical.
My current client is one of the largest TV networks in Canada so video quality isn't something they will sacrafice on which is forcing me to break the course into multiple segments, even though the segments are short in terms of number of slides. It's the video, though smallish in screen size, all adds up to make the .story file sizes pretty massive, pretty quickly. Current file size for segment 1 of 10 is 600 MB...output is tiny but working with SL is difficult at that size. Wierd things are happening like the keyboard locking up, things I type type on-screen 1 letter at a time every second or so, editing text results in a variety of odd things happening from font shifts to selecting text and the wrong text being deleted, undo is not reliable, etc. If I close and re-boot I'm good for about 1 hour of basic editing but then it starts again even without adding much more to the overall file size. So I can see I'm at a limit in SL.
This post is from January 2013, so I'm not certain Stephanie is still subscribed. You may want to send her a PM in case you'd like to connect with her specifically. If there is something I can help you with, please let me know!
As a related question....we're shooting video for a course and want to add some segments to QM. These will be delivered on the web. The video producer wants to know what format to output the files. I don't really care about .mp4 vs. .mov so much as more technical settings like frame rate, etc. Are there any standards I can use? Thanks!
I wasn't aware that AS2 exported to MP4, and that importing from MP4 might cause some potential issues (as in, a not as clean of an import pass, perhaps)
To date, I've brought in pre-scaled 720P MP4s to my eLPs, and they've looked great so far, but will definitely keep MOVs in mind for future projects. ;)
What element is Storyline having difficulty with in terms of the videos? They'll be compressed as a part of the published output detailed here, although depending on the video type/format you can change that to not compress it.
If you're having a difficult time loading the videos into Storyline, it may be the overall file size and your system set up, so I'd confirm that you exceed the minimum requirements here and that you look at closing down other programs or applications while working in Storyline.
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I prefer to use .mov as an input format. It's less lossy and tends to be cleaner on import. Videos are converted to MP4 on export unless you're using special features (alpha channel).
No special features just regular videos, i was considering MOVs but was concerned about file size in comparison to MP4 which is a lighter format, considering that i am using allot of videos 1-5 mins in length.
But nevertheless i will give MOV a chance and see what happens thanks for your help.
Yeah, .mov is only for your input and should actually compress down to the MP4 (every video imported to SL is exported as MP4 or FLV) more cleanly than an input MP4.
Ok thanks now i know what to do...
For those on the Windows side
, AVI and WMV has been working great for me. Use the best uncompressed format you can have and then let Storyline do the compressing.
Every so often I find a supported format that won't import right. for that I use the free FormatFactory tool and re-save it to a non-compressed format. That's always worked so far for those troublesome videos . . .
On this note, I'm working with a lot of videos right now and it's great to be able to import the best quality like .mov files into Storyline and equally great that Storyline does such a fantastic job compressing out to MP4 ... BUT ... the .story file remains huge as a result of all of those great quality .mov files having been imported. Yep I can split the file apart, etc to reduce size but I guess I'm wondering what you have found to be the best practice for quality video AND being able to continue to work with the .story file? Do you take the compressed MP4's from the published output and bring them back in as smaller files to reduce the .story file?
Hey, Stephanie -
That would result in a re-compression of your MP4. It might save you filesize on the frontside but might actually boost your exported size while reducing output quality.
This is a tough situation and trade-off. Might be worth a feature request to have a "set source compression" or similar that compresses your videos and replaces the one in the .story file with the compressed output.
Thanks Steve, I like that idea and did put this in as a feature request along with a few other enhancements to make working with video a bit more practical.
My current client is one of the largest TV networks in Canada so video quality isn't something they will sacrafice on which is forcing me to break the course into multiple segments, even though the segments are short in terms of number of slides. It's the video, though smallish in screen size, all adds up to make the .story file sizes pretty massive, pretty quickly. Current file size for segment 1 of 10 is 600 MB...output is tiny but working with SL is difficult at that size. Wierd things are happening like the keyboard locking up, things I type type on-screen 1 letter at a time every second or so, editing text results in a variety of odd things happening from font shifts to selecting text and the wrong text being deleted, undo is not reliable, etc. If I close and re-boot I'm good for about 1 hour of basic editing but then it starts again even without adding much more to the overall file size. So I can see I'm at a limit in SL.
At a limit in Storyline - or possibly hardware?
Hi Dave,
This post is from January 2013, so I'm not certain Stephanie is still subscribed. You may want to send her a PM in case you'd like to connect with her specifically. If there is something I can help you with, please let me know!
As a related question....we're shooting video for a course and want to add some segments to QM. These will be delivered on the web. The video producer wants to know what format to output the files. I don't really care about .mp4 vs. .mov so much as more technical settings like frame rate, etc. Are there any standards I can use? Thanks!
Hi Edward,
The only documentation I've seen regarding things such as frame rate would be for Flash movies added in as detailed here. Otherwise it's also worth noting, here is how videos will be encoded in your published output.
Interesting discussion!
I wasn't aware that AS2 exported to MP4, and that importing from MP4 might cause some potential issues (as in, a not as clean of an import pass, perhaps)
To date, I've brought in pre-scaled 720P MP4s to my eLPs, and they've looked great so far, but will definitely keep MOVs in mind for future projects. ;)
Hi Mark,
You can import MP4s, but you'll see that they are re-encoded to MP4 upon the publish output.
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Hi Jean-David,
What element is Storyline having difficulty with in terms of the videos? They'll be compressed as a part of the published output detailed here, although depending on the video type/format you can change that to not compress it.
If you're having a difficult time loading the videos into Storyline, it may be the overall file size and your system set up, so I'd confirm that you exceed the minimum requirements here and that you look at closing down other programs or applications while working in Storyline.
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