Tips for Faster Video?

Feb 15, 2011

I'm using software demonstrations in Presenter (no quiz/no engage) and I'm keeping them to less than 1.5 min each. In fact, I only have one video in my current course. Most of the people who tested the course didn't see an issue, but a few said that it took several seconds to load. I know there are lots of factors, including their machine and their internet connection but I want to do what I can to work well for the largest audience. I couldn't find any options for pre-loading or setting any video options. Does anyone have any info on ways to optimize video? I guess I can go back and work with the recording settings but I wanted to see if there are any Articulate options.

thanks!

lisa

3 Replies
Jeanette Brooks

Hi there Lisa, and welcome to Heroes! Yeah, a video won't load into the course player until the learner reaches the slide on which you've inserted it, so one thing that can help is to keep your video file size as small as reasonable, to minimize the load time.

One trick that a lot of Articulate users have used with great success is a custom pre-loader:  a swf that you load into the logo panel of your course that allows your movies to pre-load in advance while learners are viewing the slides that appear before the movie slides. This way, when the learner gets to a slide that contains a video, ideally the video's ready to play right away - it's already loaded so the learner doesn't have to wait. This works best, of course, if your presentation has enough slides before the video to allow sufficient load time. If you're interested in experimenting with a pre-loader, two of the Articulate MVPs have created some solutions and made them available to the community. They do require some file manipulation, but it's pretty straightforward if you follow their instructions. They both hang out here in the forums regularly too, so if you have a question about the pre-loaders you could post here and I'm sure they will jump in before long. Here's where you can find their pre-loaders:

Hope that helps!

Lisa Smyser

Wow! Thanks so much Jeanette! That's exactly what I need. I've been through the files and feel comfortable that it's something I can do no problem. The only question I have may sound odd, but How does Articulate know to play the preloaded version rather than download another copy when I arrive at the video slide? Does it automatically recognize that the same file name is already available in memory?

Thanks for saving my presentation... AGAIN!

Lisa

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