The option for uncompressed video is greyed out. It is a separate MP4 I uploaded and haven't touched it with any Storyline editing tools as suggested in another article.
The video as-is is extremely blurry when imported into SL.
Thank you for reaching out and for opening a support case! I see you're already working closely with Ronaziel on our team to see if we can sort why the Compression property is grayed out.
Let us know if you have any questions about what she sent!
If the compression setting is greyed out, one reason for this is that the video being used is created with a different profile. If that is the case, this is why you would not be able to edit the compression. This guide provides additional details on why the option to turn off compression is greyed out.
With that said, I was able to locate this forum thread with some suggestions from others in the community that I hope will help!
I don't use Premier Pro - but this screenshot shows the settings I used in Elements. Note that greatly increases the size of the file - in my case, going from about 25 MB to 90 MB. I am pretty new to Elements, so there may be options to shrink the file without losing quality. I have found (since my first post) that simply re-rendering the video in Camtasia using the Custom option solves the problem with the "None" compression option be grayed out.
I wish Storyline would just give us the option to enable/disable compression for video files as a global or project setting. This has been an ongoing issue for years, and only work arounds are offered, not fixes from Storyline. :(
Hi, I'm having this issue too...with videos that worked six months ago, so something is up. The videos are encoded using H264, Main Profile, Level 5.1, which is compatible with Media Player in Windows 7+.
Anyway....there is a workaround:
Publish your project
Unzip the SCORM file
Go to the Project - Storyline output\story_content folder
Copy the name of the video in there to Notepad
Delete the published video
Copy the video encoded as you like it into the folder
Rename using the filename you pasted into Notepad
Re-zip the SCORM file
Saying that the compression settings should be "Baseline, Main or High" profile is meaningless if you don't specify the Level of encoding too. I've attached a screenshot of the settings I'm using in Adobe Media Encoder, just in case they're useful for people.
I have no news, but I do want to say I'm so glad I found your workaround. Hopefully we get an answer to this that doesn't involve replacing files by hand.
I have not had a problem with this for some time. I did find if I REPLACED an existing video, the compression option grayed out, but if I inserted a new blank slide, then imported the mp4 to the new slide, the compression option was active and allowed me to select no compression. Videos that are compressed are extremely blurry and pretty much useless for training purposes.
Videos are blurry when published, fine when previewed. Have selected max quality for publishing. The compress option is greyed out for videos after importing as mp4 from Camtasia. This is going to make Storyline unworkable for my online course as the text from screen is almost unreadable. HELP!
I had this problem when I updated an existing video with a new version of the video. I found that if I created a new blank slide, then imported the updated video, the compression option was no longer grayed out. I then deleted the slide that included the previous version of the video. My videos are all saved at 1080p mp4 from Camtasia, CODEC H.264, audio 128 kps.
Hi Brad, I've tried this (blank slide import) and the compress option is still grayed out. I'm using 1080p mp4 option from Camtasia. I'll check the other settings and try again.
If you want - you could to try attaching a small snippet of the video to this thread, and I could try importing it into a new storyline project and see if compression is grayed out for me. I'm using the latest update of Camtasia 2021, but I've been using Camtasia for a few years, and after I stopped trying to update video slides, this glitch never recurred.
I just tried to export selection (green/red in out points) from Camtasia, (your snippet) and it came in with compression box active......Let me see if this trick works for the entire thing
Using selection handles in Camtasia and then Produce Selection as MP4only (up to 1080p) seems to let me bring this video in with compression options active in Storyline. Setting compression to None is essential to get the published quality good (Compression = automatic is blurry, for the same video).
(Ultimately I'm not sure whether this is really doing anything other than forcing a Camtasia refresh and that is what is really "solving" the problem. )
A bit odd. I do tend to use the selection handles and right-click to produce the selection at 1080p - but I also import smaller full videos (50-100 MB) without using the handles or the "produce selection" option without losing the option in Storyline to choose no compression.
Agree it is flaky. I tried just copying and renaming source video (to avoid having to go back into Camtasia), cut old video and insert new renamed video. It worked on one slide but not the next one I tried. The produce selection has worked each time though. If I try to crop the video in Storyline even after setting compression to none, the cropping results in compression changing to greyed out automatic. Flaky and unsatisfying, unlike a Cadbury Flake....
Articulate, please provide us the option to turn off compression regardless of profiles and the usage of the built-in editor. The current limitations are horrible as the videos looks fine during a preview, but looses far too much quality when published, even if you set static quality to max.
We have videos explaining to students where to find certain information. It's crisp and sharp during a preview, and now we've discovered that when we publish the course it's so blurry it's impossible to see what's going on on some of them.
We've already compressed them beforehand in professional software with functionality that provides the control to actually finetune this process, and I would believe many professional designers do the same.
28 Replies
Hi there, Erin!
Thank you for reaching out and for opening a support case! I see you're already working closely with Ronaziel on our team to see if we can sort why the Compression property is grayed out.
Let us know if you have any questions about what she sent!
I ended up working around this issue by uploading the videos to Vimeo and using the embed code.
Not ideal but the solution but I couldn't find a solution to the video compression issue.
Hi Katie,
I am having this issue too, can you provide an update if there was a fix for this?
I have not used the Storyline editing tool to edit my video but I also have the greyed out compression option and the published video is very blurry.
Thanks!
Hi Doug,
Happy to help!
If the compression setting is greyed out, one reason for this is that the video being used is created with a different profile. If that is the case, this is why you would not be able to edit the compression. This guide provides additional details on why the option to turn off compression is greyed out.
With that said, I was able to locate this forum thread with some suggestions from others in the community that I hope will help!
Passing a Camtasia mp4 through Adobe Premier Elements fixed this problem for me - the compression option was no longer grayed out.
Can you tell me what export setting I should use in Premier pro?
I don't use Premier Pro - but this screenshot shows the settings I used in Elements. Note that greatly increases the size of the file - in my case, going from about 25 MB to 90 MB. I am pretty new to Elements, so there may be options to shrink the file without losing quality. I have found (since my first post) that simply re-rendering the video in Camtasia using the Custom option solves the problem with the "None" compression option be grayed out.
I wish Storyline would just give us the option to enable/disable compression for video files as a global or project setting. This has been an ongoing issue for years, and only work arounds are offered, not fixes from Storyline. :(
Hi, I'm having this issue too...with videos that worked six months ago, so something is up. The videos are encoded using H264, Main Profile, Level 5.1, which is compatible with Media Player in Windows 7+.
Anyway....there is a workaround:
Project - Storyline output\story_contentfolderSaying that the compression settings should be "Baseline, Main or High" profile is meaningless if you don't specify the Level of encoding too. I've attached a screenshot of the settings I'm using in Adobe Media Encoder, just in case they're useful for people.
Is there any update on this? Six months on and I'm still replacing videos by hand 🤦♂️
I have no news, but I do want to say I'm so glad I found your workaround. Hopefully we get an answer to this that doesn't involve replacing files by hand.
Looking to see if there are any follow ups from articulate about this issue.
I have not had a problem with this for some time. I did find if I REPLACED an existing video, the compression option grayed out, but if I inserted a new blank slide, then imported the mp4 to the new slide, the compression option was active and allowed me to select no compression. Videos that are compressed are extremely blurry and pretty much useless for training purposes.
Videos are blurry when published, fine when previewed. Have selected max quality for publishing. The compress option is greyed out for videos after importing as mp4 from Camtasia. This is going to make Storyline unworkable for my online course as the text from screen is almost unreadable. HELP!
I had this problem when I updated an existing video with a new version of the video. I found that if I created a new blank slide, then imported the updated video, the compression option was no longer grayed out. I then deleted the slide that included the previous version of the video. My videos are all saved at 1080p mp4 from Camtasia, CODEC H.264, audio 128 kps.
Hi Brad, I've tried this (blank slide import) and the compress option is still grayed out. I'm using 1080p mp4 option from Camtasia. I'll check the other settings and try again.
Hi Mark,
If you want - you could to try attaching a small snippet of the video to this thread, and I could try importing it into a new storyline project and see if compression is grayed out for me. I'm using the latest update of Camtasia 2021, but I've been using Camtasia for a few years, and after I stopped trying to update video slides, this glitch never recurred.
I just tried to export selection (green/red in out points) from Camtasia, (your snippet) and it came in with compression box active......Let me see if this trick works for the entire thing
Hi Brad,
Using selection handles in Camtasia and then Produce Selection as MP4only (up to 1080p) seems to let me bring this video in with compression options active in Storyline. Setting compression to None is essential to get the published quality good (Compression = automatic is blurry, for the same video).
(Ultimately I'm not sure whether this is really doing anything other than forcing a Camtasia refresh and that is what is really "solving" the problem. )
A bit odd. I do tend to use the selection handles and right-click to produce the selection at 1080p - but I also import smaller full videos (50-100 MB) without using the handles or the "produce selection" option without losing the option in Storyline to choose no compression.
Agree it is flaky. I tried just copying and renaming source video (to avoid having to go back into Camtasia), cut old video and insert new renamed video. It worked on one slide but not the next one I tried. The produce selection has worked each time though. If I try to crop the video in Storyline even after setting compression to none, the cropping results in compression changing to greyed out automatic. Flaky and unsatisfying, unlike a Cadbury Flake....
Hi, Mark.
Thank you for sharing what you're experiencing!
If I try to crop the video in Storyline even after setting compression to none, the cropping results in compression changing to greyed out automatic.
This is the expected behavior, as editing the file within Storyline will disable the option to turn compression off.
Another in the long long line of limitations within Articulate - I'm getting sick of it at this stage.
Articulate, please provide us the option to turn off compression regardless of profiles and the usage of the built-in editor. The current limitations are horrible as the videos looks fine during a preview, but looses far too much quality when published, even if you set static quality to max.
We have videos explaining to students where to find certain information. It's crisp and sharp during a preview, and now we've discovered that when we publish the course it's so blurry it's impossible to see what's going on on some of them.
We've already compressed them beforehand in professional software with functionality that provides the control to actually finetune this process, and I would believe many professional designers do the same.