Using Camtasia 6.0 with Articulate Presenter

[heather]

I don't currently have the apps on my pc to test this, so can someone answer a couple questions for me?

I'm about to create a bunch of MP4 files in Camtasia for our marketing department to post on our customer portal. To use those same files in Articulate, will I need to convert them to FLV or SWF using the Video Encoder? I've never tried importing MP4 into Articulate, but I'm thinking it doesn't support it.

From Camtasia, the FLV output quality was very low and the SWF output increased the file size 9x. When I convert the MP4 using Video Encoder, will I get these same results as I do from publishing to FLV and SWF directly from Camtasia?

Any other suggestions about the easiest workflow to get the best quality and the lowest file size?

Thanks,
Heather

[brianosmi]

I would recommend publishing for FLV out of your authoring tool, rather than converting the mp4 files to FLV - just my 2 cents. I think you will maintain a higher level of quality when following this practice, and if your authoring tool supports your desired output why add an extra tool and step into your workflow?

I'm not sure about the version of Camtasia you are using, but if I publish FLV from Camtasia I generally go into my Flash Options and change the bitrate to 512, and use the 2 pass VBR encoding. My experience is that this produces excellent quality FLV files at a reasonable file size.

[heather]

Thanks, Brian.

I'm using Camtasia 6.0.2. I increased the FLV bitrate to 5120 kbps from the default 'Quality' setting, and it looked much better. Increased the file size 5x, but it's still lower than the 9x increase on the SWF. I didn't see the VBR setting, though.

Can I import an FLV directly into a slide in Articulate? I know you can in Engage, but I'm not sure about Articulate.

Also, I've done my tests using the ExpressShow production setting. I know at one point, Techsmith was saying you must use the Legacy SWF setting. Do you know the current status on using FLV and/or the other settings?

I'll be glad to get the apps installed on this computer so I can look at this again myself!

Thanks,
Heather

[doofdaddy]

You can insert the FLV on the slide.

Another option is to use the web object feature and have the MP4 play through that. Just embed the mp4 on a blank html (you can format it to look right).

I'd create a folder for each video. Then embed the video into an html page. Title the page index.html

Insert the index.html via the web object.

[heather]

LOVE that idea. Thanks, Tom.

That way I don't have to publish twice from Camtasia, and I can update the web object videos without having the republish the Articulate course. Also, our documentation team is going to point to these same videos in the online help, so this will work well for them, too. Thanks!

Heather

[doofdaddy]

Two ways you can go with the web object:

1. Insert from your desktop. All of the files get pulled into the published folder. To update, you just have to find the right folder in the data folder and then swap out content.

2. Put the videos on a server and insert via web object. They always play from the server and you can change the videos without republishing or messing with the data folder.

One drawback to using MP4 is that you depend on the learner having the player and codecs to view the videos. that may or may not be an issue with yours but something to consider.

[brianosmi]

Originally Posted by doofdaddy

One drawback to using MP4 is that you depend on the learner having the player and codecs to view the videos. that may or may not be an issue with yours but something to consider.

One other drawback to consider with this method is that the web object can sometimes prevent other parts of the Articulate UI from operating correctly, such as the attachments tab, embedded Engage or QM tabs, etc.

This can be prevented by always using the Slide Only view for the slides with web objects.

[brianosmi]

Originally Posted by heather

I'm using Camtasia 6.0.2. I increased the FLV bitrate to 5120 kbps from the default 'Quality' setting, and it looked much better. Increased the file size 5x, but it's still lower than the 9x increase on the SWF. I didn't see the VBR setting, though.

FLV support was originally left out of Camtasia 6, and it sounds like they possibly left out some of the nicer control settings when they added it back in... Hopefully that's not the case. In any case I'm not surprised that the FLV is larger in file size than the mp4 file... Mp4 has excellent compression....

Originally Posted by heather

Also, I've done my tests using the ExpressShow production setting. I know at one point, Techsmith was saying you must use the Legacy SWF setting. Do you know the current status on using FLV and/or the other settings?

I also use the ExpressShow production setting and just pluck the FLV file out of the published output. If you want to use .swf rather than FLV then the legacy swf option is a good one to go with, but I find the FLV files to be higher in quality and smaller in file size, especially if you use any of the higher end features in Camtasia, such as fades, transitions, etc.

Also, there is no reason you can't test converting one of the mp4 files using Articulate Video Encoder (AVE). It's possible that the quality will be acceptable for you, and I would be interested to see if the AVE FLV was smaller than the Camtasia FLV. But, back to your earlier point, it's just one extra step in the production process...

Good luck!

[RichardJCampbell]

Below is a video I converted to flv using Camtasia 6.02. The original file provided to me by my publisher was Quicktime (mov) format.

team_1]

[jperkins71]

I've been reading the forum on using Camtasia 6 and Articulate. I'm still not sure what to choose for settings for my flv output. I want the file to be the size of the slide, which is 800X600.

I'm not sure what to select for frame rate and key frame rate and the encoding mode.

Please specify.

Thanks,

Janine