Forum Discussion
Can no longer turn the video compression off with new Storyline 3 update...
I recently uploaded the most recent Storyline 3 updates. My published projects are now playing better within the browsers. However, now the customization setting is defauted to 'automatic'. In the past, I had to set this setting to 'none' because my videos would have a better quality when played within their published HTML5 format. Although I understand that Storyline does not like for people to control this setting, it is very inconvenient for it to still be there and for me to not have the option to turn it off. My videos have already been compressed prior to inserting them into my project. Compressing them again causes them to appear grainy and unfocuses. Please help!
47 Replies
I am exporting Vyond animations to Storyline 360. All exported MP4s were successfully imported into Storyline 360 slides with the option to disable compression active.
I then needed to make a small edit to the Vyond animation.
For these new video, exported in exactly the same way, the "None" option with respect to video compression is not available. This is the case when I try to replace the existing video (the preferred option) or if I delete the rev 1 and import the rev 2. No "None" option.
Like Dale above, if I create a new Storyline file and import the rev 2 video, i.e. the same video as above, I have the option to apply "None" for video compression.
To get past this issue, I added a new slide to the original storyline file and imported the new video and was given the option to disable compression. I then cut and pasted it into the original slide. Not ideal but how I got around this bug.
I have been running into this very often , where I import a video to the slide , change the compression to none , later if I have to replace the video with a revised file , the option of none is no longer there. It is set to Automatic and greyed out.
I even tested it with importing a mp4 to the slide , saving the project , choosing to replace the file and using the same exact file that is already there, and the drop down to select NONE is not available, it is set to Automatic and greyed out.
Work around:
What I do is delete the video file from the slide , save & close the project , close Storyline 360 , delete the Storyline folder from my Temp directory. Re-open the project , insert the video onto the slide , and I can now select the option for Compression to NONE.
A royal pain, and I hope it gets fixed soon.Thank you John! This worked. Nothing that the Articulate support told me helped. They sent me the list of profiles, and asked if I edited the video in Storyline - which wasn't helpful. Eventually, support gave me 'steps' to follow, which is basically reinstalling Storyline. Again, not helpful. I hope they understand that there IS a problem here, its not just us not using the "right profile".
The first time I tried inserting a new slide and importing the same video I was able to change compression to "None" I thought that would be the end of it....but a few days later, and I'm stuck with "None" grayed out.
I tried your work around and it works (at least for now) :) I was so close to just redoing the whole course in a new file!
Thanks for this, John! I was ready to redo course because of this issue and your fix worked!
This is definitely a problem! My videos are h264 high. When I start a new storyline file, they go in with no issues and I can change the auto compression setting to none. However, in the preExisting course I'm editing this is NOT working this way. Compression is greyed out and isn't an option. This is the SAME video, different SL file. So, it's not the videos fault. This is even an issue when I add a new slide and import the video again. Still no compression option.
It is disheartening that this bug isn't fixed after a year, have you tried closing the project , clearing the temp directory , and reopening the project ? That has worked every time for me.
Thank you for the thoughts on how to deal with this! Yes, it's still a problem, experiencing the same issue with a completely different project that also involves Vyond video. I'm not sure how to clear out my Temp files, but I will figure it out and see if that helps.
In the past I've had to set up a new slide and transfer all the objects and reimport the video in order to access the compression control. Your solution would be much quicker! Thanks for sharing your experience!
Hi all,
I would like to also express my disappointment from this ongoing issue and add, that what I find very frustrating, is the fact that videos recorded using Storyline have the compression option greyed out as default! I would expect that at least you can choose not to compress videos recorded directly using SL 360 without the need to make any super complicated amendments as described below. Not sure how to fix this to be honest, since the option is greyed out from the very beginning. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Veronika
Have you tried saving the video out, and reimporting them back in? Or maybe save them, put them in a brand new course, save, and import them into the course you need them in. Seems crazy to have to do this, but it's what I had to do.
Hello.
I have the same problem as the people here. There is indeed a "bug" with Storyline 3.
It would be good to correct it as soon as possible.Well, it's been a couple of years and it's still not fixed.... Still a problem for me too. The funny thing is I can take the same video into a new SL file and it wont be compressed. One time I was even able to import these slides with uncompressed videos from the new SL into the existing one and it worked. But, that same technique is no longer working. So, I guess I'm suppose to import all of the slide from the old one, into the new one and hope for the best. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with codecs, because logic would say that if that were the case it would NEVER have allowed you to not to compress the video. And this isn't the case. So, not sure what the bug is, but yeah...It's frustrating. I would love to see this fixed as well. Hope you find a work around. Would be curious what creative solution you find to make this work.
It is sad , and very frustrating that it has not been fixed. I have had to rebuild so many projects due to this , and there is no rhyme or reason as to when it will or won't allow you to no apply compression. Come on Articulate , can you at least make the default to not compress videos on slides ? I was looking forward to 'bending their ear' about it at the DevLearn Expo this year , but that does not look feasible. :(
Hi Stephanie and John,
We do still have an open issue specific to the compression field becoming disabled when replacing a video via Edit Video > Change Video option. Is this what you are experiencing as well?
If not, please share your video file and/or .story file so that we can take a look. With your permission, you can share it privately by uploading it here. It will be deleted when troubleshooting is complete.
In addition, John, you can always bend our ear right with your ideas and suggestions.
Yes , same unresolved issue that is unresolved after 2 years. :(
For me, it happens EVERY time if I select the video and right click and select the "replace" option...the new video will then have compression option greyed out. My workaround is that I can delete the video from the slide and reinsert the new/updated video and compression option is enabled so I can select None. I thought the new video had to have a different name, but that's not actually the case. The downside to my workaround is I have to then re-associate any related triggers. But this workaround consistently works.
New user of Storyline 360 here. I just had the same problem described in this thread.
I had replaced a video on one of my slides with a new version that had been re-edited in another program (I right clicked on the video object in Storyline and selected the option to replace the video). The updated version of the video in Storyline would not allow me to leave it uncompressed as the original video had been. The issue was not caused by the type of MP4 compression as mentioned above (baseline, main, high) -- the new version of the video used the same compression type as the original -- nor was it edited inside of Storyline.
I tried deleting the video and reuploading it, but that did not work (once Storyline recognized that it was the same video as before, it automatically compressed it and would not let me uncompress it). The solution that worked, which I got from this thread, was the following:
(1) Delete the video, save the file, and close the file.
(2) Then, open a blank file and upload the re-edited video into the blank file. Select the "none" option to leave it uncompressed.
(3) Finally, open up the original file, copy the video object from the blank file, and paste it into the original file.
Hopefully this solution works for others.
I'm circling back to this thread a year later because the problem still has not been fixed in Storyline. I recently exported a course, and as I was reviewing it, I saw that all the videos were blurry. Immediately, I knew what was wrong: I had forgotten to change the default video compression setting from Automatic to None for each video in the course. When I went back to Storyline to edit the settings, I saw that the Compression drop-down menus were grayed out. Basically, once Storyline compresses the videos, it is does not allow you to restore them to their uncompressed format. I tried deleting the videos and replacing them, as mentioned in my previous post, but that work-around no longer works. Storyline recognizes the videos from before and automatically compresses them, even if you change the video file names and try to insert the renamed videos into Storyline.
I did find another work-around this time. I put the video files into Adobe Premiere Pro and re-exported them as new files. Then, Storyline allowed me to insert the new videos without compression because it didn't recognize the re-exported files. This process was a huge pain and took a lot of time, especially because I had the videos edited into a montage in Storyline, so I had to redo the timing of the videos in the timeline. But this work-around might be the best option.
So, there are two issues that Articulate should address:
1) There should be more video compression options in Storyline. The automatic compression option is essentially unusable because the videos become blurry. I imagine that Articulate makes this option the default in order to conserve their server space by reducing file size. However, because the resolution becomes so low with automatic compression, the uncompressed option is the only feasible one. If Articulate added some happy medium options between hi-res and and low-res, they would get more people to use compression and would actually save more server space. Also, automatic compression should not be the default option since it seems to be a "destructive" edit that does not allow the user to restore the unedited video.
2) The bigger issue is that Storyline locks each video into a low-res compression when a course is exported. Forcing users to find work-around solutions to fix their videos after this irreversible compression adds hours of work and rebuilding.
I hope Articulate can fix this issue soon!
Thank you.
