Using videos in Storyline

sadly there isn't. If not why are there blue rays and dvd. What i would do size it to the exact size that you are using for example if its a background than as big as the background.  if its 400x400 make it at least that size. You can always replace the published file with the original but that will increase the size. 

Hi Gemma,

Using an outboard tool to down-convert video clips does allow you some flexibility to play with the parameters a bit. Without getting into an entire digital video class, you can start by thinking about the three big factors that you have to "balance" as you compress video in a tool...

• Resolution: This is the one most people focus on, but it doesn't tell the entire story by a long shot. Generally speaking, with animation you can lower the resolution quite a bit and still get acceptable quality.
• Frame Rate:  While resolution is how many pixels are used to paint each image, frame rate is how often the frame is repainted. The more movement you have in a video clip (sports = high, talking head = low) the higher the frame rate you need. With some animation you may want to keep the frame rate fairly hight if there is a lot going on.
• Bit Rate: So this is the weird one so to speak. Here you are talking about how large a pipe you are feeding to the video codec. Remember the codec is the little engine that reconstructs your video.  Some codecs need more bandwidth than others so depending on which video format you are using, you can dial the bit rate down MUCH LOWER than default settings to save bandwidth. This is often overlooked and the default settings in most tools are many times higher than is really needed.

When people compress video and don't get the results they hoped for, it's often because the combination of the factors above is not optimized for the particular kind of clip they have. Remember that resolution is not the end all be all, and you can have very nice looking video at lower resolution if you use the right frame rate and bit rate.  Conversely, if you have a lot of fine detail needed (slow moving screens of displayed text to be read) they you could leave resolution higher and crush frame rate and bit rate potentially to still have a small file. Unfortunately, there are no magic or golden settings I am aware of . However you might want to search on "bit rate calculators" for video and you will find some good examples and more info on the topic.

Hope this helps!

Hi, G:  I support field operations for my company and so do a good amount of video work. It's really about experimenting with formats and presets and seeing which publish settings are acceptable.

I took a short clip of video and tried like 10 different presets and then put them in Storyline and checked out how they looked. I also looked at the file size of the different versions.

In Adobe Premiere,  I generally choose H. 264 format and then choose 1280x720 Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4 setting or newer with 29.97 frame rate. Unfortunately, there are like a gazillion presets you can choose. This setting may or may not work for you.

In the end it's about experimenting and balancing file size with the crispness of the video. Hope that helps a bit.