Storyline 2: Where's the setting to prevent video compression?

Hi Judy,

Out of curiosity, how were the MP4's generated?

Hi Judy,

Sorry for the frustration. I wanted to offer up a great primer video on video containers, codecs, and formats. It should help explain why Storyline converts everything into the h.264 codec.

I think you'll find that asking for the h.264 codec isn't a unique request for most video producers. Most tools even have that as a preset for rendering.

Mike

Thanks for the share, Mike. It was helpful for me, too. While I'm mostly familiar with formats and codecs, the guy almost sounded alien at about 2:00 minutes rattling off a thousand acronyms!

The MP4 that didn't work was produced by a professional videographer/editor. I think he used Final Cut Pro on an Apple. Other than that, I don't know how he did what he did.

I'll add "request h.264 codec" to my "lessons learned" file for future reference.

I am having the same issue. MP4 file but no option to avoid compression.  

I originally tried with a Storyline 1 file that I opened in Storyline 2.

Then I tried reinserting the video.

Then I tried creating a new project in Storyline 2.  

No luck.  I will check with our videographer, but I'm pretty sure it is the correct codec.  Any other tips or workarounds?

Hi Josh,

Is the option greyed out for you - or you're just seeing the compression within your published output? If the option is greyed out and you're certain it's an MP4 with the correct codec, can you look into conducting the repair detailed here? 

Hi Ashley,

The option is greyed out for me, just like Judy Nollet.  I confirmed it was MP4 with correct codec and Articulate Platinum Support was able to recreate the issue.  Cleo said "I was able to replicate the issue you reported. After the video was imported in Storyline 2, the compression option is disabled and set to "Automatic."

He then advised me to to reconvert the video using HandBrake (http://handbrake.fr/), which is a free tool. He gave me a video screencast on how to use HandBrake to convert videos to be used with Articulate software: https://player.vimeo.com/video/145574235

He thought there may be something with the Final Cut Pro H.264 codec.  To me, this is unacceptable and Storyline 2 features have to work with Final Cut Pro without workarounds.  I have dozens of videos that need to be converted.

Can we get confirmation this is a known bug and a timeline to fix?

Hi Josh,

I checked in with a few of my colleagues, and it seems that the codec is less of the issue, and it's more associated with the profile it was created with. You'll need to have an MP4 that is created with the correct profile. The three most common MP4 profiles: baseline, main, and high. If the Compression property is grayed out in Storyline, it means your video was created with a different profile. 

According to that wikipedia article linked, there are 22 different profiles, so I'd look into what profile they were created with in Final Cut Pro. 

If you have a case number you could share with me here, I can check into the case you were working on with Cleo as well. 

Hi Ashley,

Our videographer went to film school and has never heard of profiles.  A quick look in Final Cut Pro makes it very difficult to find a profile setting and a google search didn't help either.  Can you give some insight into 1) How to determine what profile the video is in? and 2) How to set profiles so they work with Storyline 2?

Thanks.

I think I have isolated the issue.  

Running them through handbrake didn't help until I went to Tools>>Options and set MP4 file extension from "automatic" to "always use MP4."  Then when I imported them to Storyline 2, they were recognized as MP4 instead of M4V.  Hopes this helps you isolate the problem and make it work with MP4 videos created in Final Cut.