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BenjiLukas's avatar
BenjiLukas
Community Member
15 days ago

Using HD for the first time and the timeline preview is very slow - is this normal?

Hi,

I'm using the newish HD side slide setup in Storyline, and the timeline preview (using the space bar) is extremely slow. It actually has a loading icon showing that it's working rather than instantly previewing like Storyline used to. Is this normal? 

I wouldn't have tried the HD version if I had known this in advance. 

Articulate 360
e-learning development
General E-Learning
storyline 360

2 Replies

  • ronald-hicks's avatar
    ronald-hicks
    Community Member
    15 days ago

    Yes, this is a known trade-off with the HD slide size. The spacebar timeline preview renders the slide live at full resolution, so HD slides with heavy images or video can stutter and show a spinner where the standard size felt instant. The good news: it's authoring-only. Your published course won't do this.

     

    A few things I'd check: compress any oversized images (Storyline doesn't downscale the source files), and trim video backgrounds if you're using them — those two are the usual culprits.

     

    And if you don't truly need HD, you can switch back in Design > Story Size. Just spot-check your layouts afterward, since objects can shift when the stage size changes.