Hello Again!

When I began to write up and research my blog posting titled 'Flash video in a slide' I decided to only create directions and an example of adding Progressive Download Flash Video (FLV) into an Articulate Presenter presentation. I had some thought about also adding an example of how to use Streaming Flash Video from a Flash Communication Server (now known as Flash Media Server) inside a slide, but I guess I figured that not enough people were looking for an example of Streaming Flash Video inside of Articulate Presenter to warrant an example. Well, less than 2 days after posting the original article I was contacted by 2 people asking if it was possible to add Streaming Flash Video in a slide. Well, it is, and in this blog posting I will explain how to add Streaming Flash Video from a Flash Communication Server into an Articulate Presenter slide.

In this blog posting I won't get into the specifics of the advantages of using Streaming Video over Progressive download video because it is covered pretty heavily in the Delivery Options for Flash Video developer center on the Macromedia/Adobe website.

What is needed to add Streaming Flash Video into an Articulate Presenter Slide?

1. Articulate Presenter
2. Access to a Flash Communication Server, or Streaming Media Service such as VitalStream
3. Flash MX 2004 or later
4. A basic understanding of Flash
5. access to my FLV2apstream.FLA file (click to download)

Like my previous example of adding Progressive Download FLV into Articulate Presenter at the slide level, you will need to create a SWF shell to playback the FLV, which can then be imported into Articulate Presenter for playback. Currently Articulate Presenter only supports direct FLV import into the presenter panel, so in order to get this to work you must first create a SWF shell, that will act as the player for the SWF at the slide level.

To create a SWF that loads an FLV from a streaming server:

1. Download FLV2apStream.zip
2. Unzip the file
3. Open it in Flash MX 2004 or later
4. Select the Actions panel
5. On line 2 of the ActionScript you will see a line that looks like this:
   nc.connect("rtmp://serverurl/project/_definst_");
6. Change the 'rtmp://serverurl/project/_definst_' to the location of your FLV on your Flash Media Server .
7. On line 7 of the ActionScript you will see a line that looks like this:
   ns.play("shining");
8. Change the 'shining' value to the instance name of your FLV (it will be the name of your FLV without the FLV extension)
9. Save the File
10. Preview

Watch a demo of these steps here.

If you have set this up properly the FLV should now stream into your SWF and should look something like this Streaming Flash Video. For more information on how to do this in Flash check the help file for Flash Communication Server and search for NetStream.play().

To insert the SWF into Articulate Presenter for streaming video in a slide:

1. Open up PowerPoint
2. Select Articulate>Insert Flash Movie
3. Select 'Display in slide'
4. Click Next
5. Browse to and select the SWF created earlier
6. Select 'Move to next slide when user clicks next'
7. Change the Buffer time to 0
8. Click Next
9. Click Finish
10. Publish your presentation

If everything has been set up properly your FLV should now stream into your Articulate Presenter slide and should look like this Streaming Video Example.

Stay tuned to the blog, eventually this will be a 3 part series on Flash Video. The next installment will be on Streaming LIVE Flash Video into an Articulate Presentation.

Labels: FLV, Presenter

It seems like lately a lot of people have been asking if Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker work with Moodle. For those of you that don't know Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities (that definition came from moodle.org, I have no idea what pedagogical means). For more information on Moodle please visit http://www.moodle.org.

The good news is that Moodle has a SCORM module which allows you to upload any standard SCORM package, which includes Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker content, to include in your course. Both Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker are certified as SCORM compliant by an independent ADL certification expert which means without having to do anything special Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker will work and report results to Moodle.

The reason this question has come up so often is that Moodle, like many Learning Management Systems, is very complicated and difficult to learn. In the brief video below I have included a demonstration on how to integrate Articulate Presenter content (with an embedded Quizmaker quiz) into Moodle.





As you can see in the demonstration Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker can work with and report results to Moodle.

Note: Moolde can be a very complicated system to install, like many other Open Source applications, if you are not an advanced computer user. I would recommend getting the help of an advanced user before attempting to install and user Moodle.

For more information on this subject please visit the following sites:
Articulate Presenter SCORM certification information.
Articulate
Moodle
Moodle and SCORM

Labels: Presenter, SCORM

As Flash Video (FLV) is becoming a more widely adopted delivery option for video on the web more and more eLearning content creators are looking to add video to their eLearning content.

In Articulate Presenter you have several different options for delivering video:

1. Display in slide (supports SWF)
2. Display in presenter panel (supports FLV and SWF)
3. Display in new browser window (supports SWF)

Since SWF is currently the only option availible at the slide level, many users are trying to embed large videos inside of SWF content for delivery in Articulate Presenter at the slide level.

The problem with this option is that embedded video in SWF format is not a good medium for delivering videos over 90 seconds in length. When you begin to exceed 90 seconds in length for embedded video you will run into audio synchronization issues, and video skipping issues. (For more information on this subject see Delivery Options for Flash Video.

For this reason it has becoming increasingly important to look to alternatives to embedding Video in SWF content. My recommendation for including longer videos at the slide level is to create a SWF file that loads in a Flash Video. This will give you the option of minimizing project file size, but adding the richness of video content. You will then be able to import your SWF which will then load the FLV during presentation playback..

Note: In order to create a SWF that loads a Flash Video File (FLV) you will need to have access to either Flash MX 2004 or Flash 8.

Once you have Flash MX 2004 or later installed, you can edit the FLA file that I created to point to your FLV.

1. Download the following ZIP file that contains the source FLA:
   http://www.mozealous.com/downloads/flv2ap.zip
2. Open up the source FLA in Flash
3. Select the Actions layer
4. Change all the FLV links to links to your FLV
5. Publish for Flash Player 6
6. Open your Articulate Presentation
7. Select > Articulate > Insert Flash Movie...
8. Select Next
9. Select Display in slide
10. Select the published SWF
11. For Synchronization select 'Play Flash movie after slide has begun'
12. Deselect option to 'Allow player to control inserted Flash movie'
13. Select Next
14. Select Finish
15. Publish your presentation

You can then customize the SWF to meet your needs for dimension and background color.

Labels: FLV, Presenter

Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Dave Mozealous and I am the Quality Assurance Engineer for Articulate. Some of you might remember me from my past position as Quality Assurance Lead for Macromedia for another eLearning content development application (Captivate) and as a Product Support Engineer for various Macromedia products as well.

My goal for this blog is to share some information that I have learned, discovered, or stumbled into over the years while working with various eLearning products. I will try to use this blog to post information that would usually be considered "outside the scope" of normal uses of the program.

I have a heavy background in Learning Management System integration so I will also be posting topics on interesting eLearning information as it comes along.
Please feel free to comment on anything that I post on this site as I welcome all types of feedback.