Is AI Text-to-Speech mp3 encoding during Publishing necessary?

Yes, thanks Kelly. With his permission, here's the response from Robert, answering my request:

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Rest assured, you’ve come to the right place. We’re happy to take a closer look and get you the clarity you need. I listed below the questions from your message, followed by my short responses:

1. Is there any benefit to leaving the Storyline-generated AI Text-to-Speech audio files set to “Automatic” for publishing?

Response: The results of my tests varied in terms of file size; however, there was not much difference in terms of quality that I could distinguish.

2. Can I change them all to “None” to speed up the publishing time?

Response: Yes to all MP3s

3. Are the Storyline-generated TTS files already compressed and ready to go as-is?

Response: Yes

4. What are the implications of setting all audio files to “None”?

Response: It allows you to preserve the original quality and skips the compression process

5. Would the resulting published folder be larger if the audio is not re-encoded?

Response: Regarding the AI-generated TTS MP3, it looks like they are smaller compared to the compressed version.

6. Is anything else being done to the AI TTS MP3 files during the publishing re-encoding process?

Response: Nothing specific or special. All audio files are treated the same. Compressed audio has mono sound in the published output.

Please see this article for more information: Storyline 360: Uncompressed Audio, Stereo Sound, and Higher Sample Rate

I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to assist you!

Best regards,

Robert de la Cuesta
Senior Customer Support Engineer
Articulate Support - https://articulate.com/support/