In Articulate Presenter you have several different options for delivering video:
- Display in slide (supports SWF)
- Display in presenter panel (supports FLV and SWF)
- 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.
- Download the following ZIP file that contains the source FLA:
http://www.mozealous.com/downloads/flv2ap.zip - Open up the source FLA in Flash
- Select the Actions layer
- Change all the FLV links to links to your FLV
- Publish for Flash Player 6
- Open your Articulate Presentation
- Select > Articulate > Insert Flash Movie...
- Select Next
- Select Display in slide
- Select the published SWF
- For Synchronization select 'Play Flash movie after slide has begun'
- Deselect option to 'Allow player to control inserted Flash movie'
- Select Next
- Select Finish
- Publish your presentation
You can then customize the SWF to meet your needs for dimension and background color.
AICC
Articulate Presenter SDK (2:03)
Articulate
Thanks for the fast reply and solution !!
I have limited knowledge about flash 8. Is there any way to use FLV links that are located on my C drive (so that I could change all of your FLV links to my FLV objects located on my local drive). Thanks for any assistance.
I'm sorry, but I am not as much of a techie as I need to be. I'm just an ordinary user who was told that Articulate was so simple, even an idiot like me could use it. I need to load full motion videos in slide view. Again, the Articulate marketing pitch said I could do that. The longest one is about 9 minutes long. The phrase "...create an SWF file that loads in a Flash Video" confuses me a bit, I must confess. I thought .swf WAS a Flash video. If an .swf file merely "loads" the .flv file, where does the .flv reside? Then you introduce the term "FLA file." Other than reference to my home state in the southeast, you give no reference to what a FLA file is. Help?!
Hello Anonymous...yes there is a way to do this, but it requires Flash Player 7 or later for playback. If you are still reading this forum, send me an email and I will send you an example of this...my email address is dmozealous and I work @articulate.com. I broke up the email address so I don't end up getting a ton of spam. Thanks.
Hello Nick,
I am sorry my directions were confusing, I should have prefaced the directions with a note that they should only be used by advanced Flash users...
A SWF is actually not a Flash Video, but a Flash movie. Macromedia has always done a horrible job with naming its programs and their file formats, I understand it is confusing, but they do this will all their products...It is horrible from a marketing standpoint..but I digress. Here basically are the differences between the certian files:
FLA - Is a Flash source file that is editable in Flash. This is what is used to create SWF output files. So basically the FLA is what you publish or compile to make SWF files.
SWF - Is the output file that you see all over the web. Articulate Presenter makes SWF files that play nicely over the web. I believe the acronym SWF originally stood for Shockwave File, but as I mentioned above, Macromedia does a poor job with naming.
FLV - Is a Flash Video file, similar to MOV, MPEG, and so on. The difference between an FLV file, and a MOV and MPEG file is that an FLV can only play in a SWF wrapper.
If you are still reading this blog, please email me, and I will respond to your questions about Video in presenter. My email address is dmozealous and I work @articulate.com.
If your videos are upwards of 9 minutes long I have some suggestions to make sure they will play optimally in Articulate Presenter.
Hello Siva,
Basically the SCORM package is just the same as publishing locally, then zipping up the contents of the output folder. So what you should do is publish locally (select the LMS option) copy in the files as you normally do, then zip up the entire contents of the output directory. Does that make sense? Maybe I am miss interpreting your question, so if I am feel free to reply.
Hello Dave, thanks for all the great info you have here, it really helps. I tried inserting a .swf onto an Articulate page and used your flv2ap.fla file to make the .swf. I edited the 3 URLs in your .fla to the URL of my .flv video and changed the screen size to fit a 240x180 video (260x230). Your instructions seemed straight forward and clear, but when I play my SCORM 1.2 published course from the LMS site, the video does not play. Any ideas? thanks. Email name is gat7, the ISP is @verizon.net (thanks for the scam tip).
Hi Dave,
First of all I just want to say that your web page is great and very informative.
I downloaded your source FLA Zip file (http://www.mozealous.com/downloads/flv2ap.zip) and followed all the steps to create a SWF. All worked perfectly but when I open the SWF file (in Articulate or Flash Player) nothing happens. Am I doing something wrong here? FYI The file started out as an MPeg and I converted it to FLV using Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder then, using your step by step approach, converted it to SWF using Flash Pro 8.
Thanks,
Richard
Hello Richard,
Can you tell me if your video plays locally? So if you publish and play, does it then show? Also, are you pointing to an FLV uploaded to a webserver? One possible problem is that in WIN2K3 servers, FLV is not listed as a MIME type, so you need to add FLV as a MIME type in IIS, and that should correct the problem.
Hello Titus,
Unfortunately I couldn't ever get a local FLV to play, so I only used a FLV loaded on a webserver.
I am not really sure without looking at the FLA and knowing exactly how it was added. The example that I created uses an FLV loaded onto a webserver, then progressively downloaded (basically streamed) into the SWF so that would be my first recommendation.
If you do not have access to a webserver to load in the FLV I would try to embed the FLV in the SWF.
One thing you should also verify is that the SWF that you are creating is published for Flash Player 7 or 6. Articulate Presenter only supports Flash animations targeted for Flash Player 6 and 7, and if you are using the Flash Video Encoder with Flash 8, it might be that you are using the On2 codec for FLV compression which will only play in Flash Player 8.
Hello Titus,
That indeed is the problem. The FLVPlayback component is only supported if you are publishing for Flash Player 8. The example download that I have provided does not use the FLVPlayback component, it only uses that are supported in Flash Player 6.
Dave, Thanks for your help! I've manged to insert an SWF linked locally to an FLV. I had to copy the FLV into the published player folder to maintain a relative local link from the SWF. (No webserver necessary for testing!) My question is this. The player controls of Articulate will only control the SWF -not the linked FLV, correct? Is there a way to associate the Articulate controls directly with the FLV?
Unfortunately no, or if there is, I haven't been able to figure it out. If you have access to the Articulate SDK you can use it to tell if the presentation IS paused, but you can't say, if presentation is paused, pause the FLV.
Hello Dave, My presenter .flv video plays well using your system and .swf file. I have the .flv on the LMS server along with the course. Thanks. My question is, if I purchase Macromedia Media Server and install it on one of the intranet servers, will I be able to stream the .flv's to my Articulate courses? thanks, Brandan
Hello Brandan,
Yes you will. Check out this post for details on how to do this:
Streaming Flash Video In Slide
Hi Dave
I'm having trouble with the paths of the flv. I'm not very familiar with Articulate but I did get it working if I placed the flv in the player folder, however I found that each time I published, Articulate overwrote the contents of this folder. I need to be able to put my flv in a folder so that the whole thing can be bundled and loaded to an LMS, therefore I need to use a relative path in my loader swf. Can you help me understand what's happening?
Hello Wendy,
You are correct. Each time you publish from Articulate we will clear your output directory. You will need to manually copy the FLV to the player folder every time you publish. The FLV is a resource of your inserted SWF, and Articulate will only copy over the SWF, but will not copy over the FLV because it has no idea that the FLV is a resource of the SWF.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Dave - that's quite annoying if you are dealing with multiple modules and many creators. The other solution would be to create a separate folder but I don't think I could get this to work.
Hey Wendy,
When you publish from AP, we will automatically create a subfolder in your publishing location that matches the title of your presentation, only that subfolder will be cleared, but not the entire publish location. So, say you and I both were publishing to the same location, and my presentation was titled "Intro to Accounting" and yours was titled, "Intro to health care" the location that we published too would have two separate subfolders:
"publish location"\Intro to Accounting\
and
"publish location"\Into to health care\
Does that make sense? You will only have problems with multiple authors if you are using the same presentation title.
Hi. I was trying to figure if it was possible to control the volume of the flv within articulate. I saw the presenter ex. but looking to customize. Thanks.
Can i use sorenson squeeze to convert and package my video into a FLV and then just import that directly into articulate?
Depends on where you are trying to import it to. If you are adding the FLV as Presenter video then yes you can. If you are trying to add slide video you can add the FLV, just not directly. The following forum post explains how you can add slide level FLV without the use of Flash Slide Level Video without Flash.
Dave,
I've been able to insert embedded swf files into AP with no real problems for months now. however, i'm getting into longer and longer video and i want to follow "best practices" (sorry for using such a corporate-ee term!). I convert my video using sorenson squeeze. its default option is to output seperate swf/flv files. however, i have always changed default to "embedded video". here's my problem: I still have no idea how to icorporate separate swf/flv files into AP. if i use the standard commands in ap it just grabs the empty swf file and i end up with nothing in my published ap presentation. THANKS!
Hello Jerry,
Try any of the suggestions outline in the following blog posts:
FLV using Engage
FLV in a slide 2.0
Using Engage makes it super easy to include slide level FLV. However, if you aren't ready to buy Engage check out the FLV in a slide 2.0 blog posting on how to add slide level FLV. Hope this helps
Hello Peter,
Sounds like you missed a step in the above instructions. You might want to try the instructions in this blog post:
http://www.mozealous.com/2006/08/slide-level-flv-without-flash-20.html
It actually does a better job of using video (allows for pause, and auto advance) in a slide. Just make sure you follow the instructions step by step.
Hi Dave:
Thanks for your tutorial; it's really helpful.
Are there any plan for the next version of Presenter to support the FLVPlayback component? The component is one of the main features of Flash 8 Pro and we found it easy to use. If we are forced to use the older Video object because of the current Presenter limitation, it will defeat our purpose of having Flash 8 pro.
thank,
Hello EK,
Actually it is difficult to say at this point what support AP6 will offer for Flash Video at the slide level. Have you looked into using Engage at all for including Flash Video at the slide level?
What I would recommend doing is posting a product enhancement request asking for support for slide level FLV at the following location:
http://www.articulate.com/support/contact/feature/
This will ensure all of our product management team sees the suggestion.
I know this is an old discussion but is there a way to add some additional features to the video playback such as a slider and a volume control? i'm not a flash expert but I do have a general understanding of flash 8
Is there a way to import flash video (flv file) to first slide in presenter panel and sync remaining slides with it? This will elliminate loading bar that shows up if you cut the video for each slide and uplaod. I was thinking that it could be done in time line audio editor where I can move slides from red bars. I tried it but it didn't work pobably because Articulate doesn't have a video editor. Is there a way to integrate a video editor and then move slides? I am just thinking about a clean video presentation where slides can advance but video doesn't show a loading bar.
Thanks
Hello,
Currently AP does not support loading a single FLV in, and then having it span multiple slides. You should add a product enhancement request at Articulate.com for this, as it is a good request that I have been pushing for.
One of the reasons we don't currently support it is that it is very difficult to implement. Since AP uses progressive FLV video, if you inserted a single long video that spanned multiple slides is that you couldn't jump to later slides if the video hasn't downloaded to that section yet.
Sorry in advance for the rookie question... is there a way to prevent the exported Articulate Presenter SWF content from having relative references to the other local SWF files it needs?
Thanks,
Andy
Hello Andy,
Articulate Presenter will always use relative links. Sorry.
When I have an SWF on a slide, after publishing the dimensions become increased by about 20%. This is undesirable as the video has already been substantially compressed of course, however to acceptable levels when viewing at 100%. Now with it being enlarged in the presentation the quality really degrades.
We've tried every combination of options Articulate gives for browser window etc., and nothing has resulted in the SWF playing at it's native dimensions.
Any ideas?
Hello johnl,
The things that come to mind is your Browser window settings in your Player Template Builder. Make sure your presentation is set to resize to optimal size.
If that isn't it, it could be that the SWF you are inserting is doing something funky.
Best advice would be to check with support at http://www.articulate.com/support
They should help identify the issue.
I try to use a local FLV with the flv2ap.swf. I put "name.flv" for the path of the flv file but where do i put the file after in the package ?
thx for response.
Hi Dave,
I don't have any experience with Presenter and I'm on a Mac so I can't use it, but I need to create some videos for a client to incorporate into their Presenter file. I can export .swf's using ON2 Technologies out of QuickTime but can you give me any guidelines that will ensure good playback results?
For example: Are there any file size restrictions? Duration restrictions? Video dimension restrictions? That I should be aware of?
Thanks so much for your help.
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Hi Reidy,
It depends on where you are inserting the video. Are they using presenter video, or slide level video? How long is the video?
-Dave
Hi Siva , can you tell me how to play flv in Atriculate. I am not able to play. I tried wht you have mentioned in blog but no success yet