Using Camtasia 6.0 with Articulate Presenter

[brianosmi]

Originally Posted by 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.

Hello Janine, let me start off by first saying that since most of these posts were made Articulate has released an updated version of the software that now supports the Mp4 playback as well (h.264), so FLV is not the only option. With that being said, I still like to use FLV, primarily because I haven't had time to test the new option .

Here is my advice on the settings you mention above:

• The slide size is different, dependant upon if you are showing the left navigation panel in Articulate Presenter or not. If you are using the left nav panel, then you want your end movie to be produced no larger than 720x540. If you are not using the left nav (no sidebar mode) then you can produce your movie at larger sizes up to 980x560. Also be sure to lock your presentation size at optimal in Articulate.
• 30 fps is the recommended frame rate by Articulate, but 20 fps also works well and is what I normally use when publishing from Camtasia for Articulate.
• I would recommend leaving the key frame rate to automatic and let Camtasia handle that part of it.

Hope this helps!

[heather]

Your video dimensions to fill the slide when you're viewing the left navigation is 720x540. To fill the whole area when the left navigation is hidden, it's 980x560. I would stick to 720x540 to save on the file size and keep it in a more normal proportional dimension.

I record at 1024x768 and publish at 640x480. That leaves me room at the top or bottom of the slide for a heading and navigation buttons, if I want to include them. And it keeps the file size down. Since Camtasia does a good job with zooming, this works well for me.

I have used both FLV and "Legacy SWF output", depending on which gives me the best results for the smallest file size. People often recommend 44.1kHz, Mono for the audio in Camtasia. When you then publish in Articulate, I use 64k from the Articulate Publish options for the best, seamless results.

If I use FLV, I flip Encoding Mode from Quality to Bitrate, and select 5120 kbps and leave the frame rate on Automatic. You can set it to 30 if you want, but I'm not sure what that does to the file size.

[heather]

LOL...looks like Brian and I were replying at the same time. It's good to see I didn't say anything that contradicted him.

[brianosmi]

Originally Posted by heather

LOL...looks like Brian and I were replying at the same time. It's good to see I didn't say anything that contradicted him.

Ha, I hear ya! Love it when that happens - Good advice, too, all the way around. I believe our posts compliment each other well.

[jperkins71]

Thanks! I appreciate the quick response.

[Lizanne]

Hey guys,

I have a a whole bunch of flash (flv) files that I created using Camtasia that I would like to insert into articulate. I am inserting them into the presenter panel. My flv files have all been produced with the same parameters from Camtasia. My issue is that when I publish the articulate presentation, the videos appear in the presenter panel in all different sizes. Some appear so small that you can barely see them. Also, the video's that do appear the right size have grey bars on the top and bottum.

If I view the flash files with a flash player, they work fine and they are all the same size.

Can someone suggest alternate Camtasia flash production parameters that would stop this from happening, or perhaps a setting that can be changed in Articualte to avoid this problem.

Thanks a lot for your help!
Liz

[Justin]

Hello and welcome to the forums! What version of Presenter are you using? You can check in the Help -> About Presenter menu. What version of Camtasia are you using and what are the publishing options you are selecting when creating the FLVs?

[Lizanne]

I am using Presenter 5 as upgrading at this point is not an option.
I initially tried creating the .flv files with camtasia 3, but my external flash player (VLC) always said that the file could not be detected. I now have Camtasia 7 and these are the following flash parameters I have chosen;
- no controls
- flv
- 480x360
- frame rate: 30
- encoding mode: bitrate and I set it to 5120. All the other parameters I have left the same.
Any help would be great!
Thanks so much,
Liz

[Justin]

Can you specify the codec? If so, specify Sorenson Spark or use SWF files instead of FLV. I believe this is due to the codec you are using not being supported which is the on2 vp6. So see if you can use Sorenson instead.