FLV use in low-bandwidth situations
0 Comments Dave blogged on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 8:43 PM.
Do you use FLV video in your Presentations, Engage interactions, or in any Flash content for that matter, and get feedback from users that either the video plays poorly (is choppy), or takes a significant amount of time to display?
This can happen if you use FLV video that is optimized for high-bandwidth situations, but your users are operating in a low-bandwidth environment, such as dial-up modem, or slow DSL connection. Most of the programs that create FLV video allow you to specify a compression setting for the video, where you can specify the output FLV in terms of the target bandwidth rate of the end viewer. It is a good idea to compress your FLV to a level that matches your target audiences bandwidth (for example, you wouldn't want to create an FLV that is optimized for a high-bandwidth situation if your targeted viewers are all using a 56k modem to view your presentation or interaction).
Some of the popular FLV creation programs are:
Sorenson Squeeze
Sorenson allows you to select any number of predefined compression settings, that are labeled rather intelligently based on target bandwidth rate. For example, they have a 56k_Dial_Up predefined setting that is a good compression settings if your users will be viewing the FLV over a 56k modem.
Below I have created a sample movie that shows you how you can apply a compression setting in Sorenson Squeeze.
Flash Video Encoder
Flash Video Encoder has options that are similar to Sorenson Squeeze, but they call it "Quality" in Flash Video Encoder. So lower "Quality" video will be more compressed. Unfortunately they only have quality settings that go down to 150 kbps, which is a compression setting that is targeted for a faster connection than a 56k modem.
Flash Video Encorder is included with Flash Professional, but the available options for quality settings are much more limited than Sorenson's options for compression settings.
Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash
The Sothink Video Encoder allows you to specify "Profiles" (shown below) that allow you to target your output FLV for various bandwidth speeds. The available profiles range from 56 Kbps to 2.1 Mbps.
Note: Video compression is "lossy", meaning the more it is compressed, the lower the quality. Click here for more info on video compression.
This can happen if you use FLV video that is optimized for high-bandwidth situations, but your users are operating in a low-bandwidth environment, such as dial-up modem, or slow DSL connection. Most of the programs that create FLV video allow you to specify a compression setting for the video, where you can specify the output FLV in terms of the target bandwidth rate of the end viewer. It is a good idea to compress your FLV to a level that matches your target audiences bandwidth (for example, you wouldn't want to create an FLV that is optimized for a high-bandwidth situation if your targeted viewers are all using a 56k modem to view your presentation or interaction).
Some of the popular FLV creation programs are:
Sorenson Squeeze
Sorenson allows you to select any number of predefined compression settings, that are labeled rather intelligently based on target bandwidth rate. For example, they have a 56k_Dial_Up predefined setting that is a good compression settings if your users will be viewing the FLV over a 56k modem.
Below I have created a sample movie that shows you how you can apply a compression setting in Sorenson Squeeze.
Flash Video Encoder
Flash Video Encoder has options that are similar to Sorenson Squeeze, but they call it "Quality" in Flash Video Encoder. So lower "Quality" video will be more compressed. Unfortunately they only have quality settings that go down to 150 kbps, which is a compression setting that is targeted for a faster connection than a 56k modem.
Flash Video Encorder is included with Flash Professional, but the available options for quality settings are much more limited than Sorenson's options for compression settings.
Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash
The Sothink Video Encoder allows you to specify "Profiles" (shown below) that allow you to target your output FLV for various bandwidth speeds. The available profiles range from 56 Kbps to 2.1 Mbps.
Note: Video compression is "lossy", meaning the more it is compressed, the lower the quality. Click here for more info on video compression.
Labels: Engage, FLV, Presenter
Creating Custom Engage Color Schemes
15 Comments Dave blogged on Monday, October 23, 2006 at 9:44 PM.
Ok, now that Articulate Engage has launched and people are getting more familiar with the program, I wanted to start showing some examples of things you can do with Engage that you might not notice right out of the box. Well, one of the cool things you can do is create your own Engage color schemes so that you can customize the colors of your Engage Interactions to match your corporate color scheme.
In the presentation linked below I show you how you can create your own custom color schemes for use in Engage. It is a short presentation (7:07) that should walk you through the basics of creating your own color schemes.
In the presentation linked below I show you how you can create your own custom color schemes for use in Engage. It is a short presentation (7:07) that should walk you through the basics of creating your own color schemes.
Also, I have created 3 new custom color schemes that you can download here. The colors are:
- Fata Romana
- Off 2 Africa
- Grunge school
To install the color schemes unzip the 3 attached zip files into the following folder:
C:\Program Files\Articulate\Articulate Engage\schemes
After unzipping the files close and restart Engage and you should see the new schemes.
The color schemes I created were inspired by http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com/ (cool site).
Labels: Engage
For those of you who haven't heard...Articulate announced it's new product Articulate Engage today. For anyone who has come to my blog looking for advice on how to add Flash Video (FLV) to a slide, Engage now allows you to easily add slide level FLV without a bunch of complicated work arounds or having to know Flash. You can find out more about Engage here.
To see an example of how you can add FLV video to a slide in Articulate Presenter click the presentation image below.
To see an example of how you can add FLV video to a slide in Articulate Presenter click the presentation image below.
AICC
Articulate Presenter SDK (2:03)
Articulate