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Participant
July 14, 2010
Question

Audio out of sync with presentation (not using full motion)

When I preview or publish a project using Captivate 5, the audio is out of sync with the presentation. I am not using any full motion recording, which I know has caused audio/video sync issues in previous versions of Captivate. The audio is slide specific, with a separate audio file for each slide. (In other words, I'm not trying to break a large audio file over many slides.) When each slide is viewed individually -- in the workstation, in the preview window, or in the published version -- the audio is synced just fine. The problem arises only when I try to watch the entire presentation (approx. 10 minutes in length). The audio gradually lags behind the visual.  By about half way through the project, the visual presentation is noticably ahead of the audio. By the end, the audio is nearly 4 seconds behind the video. I cannot detect a noticeable change in pitch or speed of the audio, so if the audio is being altered in any way, the alteration is slight.

However, if I use the playback controls to advance to a single slide, the audio is fine for that slide and those immediately after, although it does gradually get off again as the project progresses. (So, for example, if I start the playback in the middle of the project, the audio will only be off by about 2 seconds by the end, rather than 4.)

I have tried various publishing options (although I don't think publishing is the problem, since this happens when I preview the project as well). I have used 2 different computers and also tried viewing the published version locally and streaming. None of these alterations seem to make a difference. By the end of the presentation, regardless of how the project is published or viewed, the audio is several seconds behind the video.

My specs:

Captivate 5

Microsoft XP OS

2 GB RAM

Publishing to .swf

Suggestions?

Ce sujet a été fermé aux réponses.

4 commentaires

Participating Frequently
December 1, 2010

I am also having the same problem: audio is out of sync with my slides, which means the captivate is useless to watch.

jaraya448Auteur
Participant
November 30, 2010

gravityisamyth, no, there have not been any solutions. On 9/16, an Adobe engineer contacted me wanting a copy of the file with which I was having problems. I haven't heard a thing since. I have gone back to using Captivate 3 and have completely uninstalled Captivate 5 from my workstations. It's not worth the headache. I hope you have better results than I have.

Participant
November 30, 2010

Same out-of-sync problem in Captivate 5.  Really?  No solutions?!

Participating Frequently
July 15, 2010

Hi,

Can you please check if audio on your slides is present till the end of every slide. If yes, please follow these steps -

1. Extend the slide time a bit (0.5 / 1 sec) so that slide will continue even after slide audio.

2. Do the above step for more number of slides.

3. Then Publish the project. Go to File > Publish.

4. Publish dialog opens.

5. Click "Force re-publish all slides"

6. Now view the published output.

Hope this resolves the issue. Let us know.

Regards,

Mukul

jaraya448Auteur
Participant
July 15, 2010

Mukul,

Thank you for your suggestion. While the problem is far from solved, thanks to your help I was able to successfully publish the presentation on which I was working, so my 2 days of work were (luckily) not lost.

After I posted yesterday, I continued working and troubleshooting. The presentation included 2 sets of 3 slides each (6 slides total) for which I had recorded the audio using the "Continuous Play" option, so the audio I recorded with my microphone was automatically distributed across the 3 slides in question. While working with the project, I realized that the video was much faster compared to the audio at those points than elsewhere in the video. I re-recorded those slides without the continuous play option (recording over 3 slides and then adjusting the timing using the "edit" feature after recording), and this helped but did not eliminate the problem.

(Sidenote: what good is the "Continuous Play" feature for recording audio over multiple slides if the timing gets off? Is this a bug in the program, or am I making a user error?)

After receiving your post, I made the recommended changes. The audio did extend to the end of each slide, and extending the slide .5s beyond the audio helped keep the presentation a bit more in sync. While the video still speeds up slightly to the audio by the end of the project, I don't think a viewer will be able to tell.

While the problem is solved for this presentation, the larger issue is far from resolved. Until my company bought Captivate 5 this week, I had been using Captivate 3 without problem. In my C3 projects, the audio stretches to the end of nearly every slide, and the timing remains perfect. While this particular project was short (only 38 slides), I frequently have projects of 100+ slides. Adding additional time to every single slide is hardly an efficient solution. Despite the time-saving improvements Adobe made to the workstation within Adobe 5, those time savings are more than lost if I then have to adjust the timing for every single slide just so the presentation plays correctly.

Again, what are your suggestions? I need to know what's wrong so I can fix this going forward.

Thank you for your time.

Best,

jaraya