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Dawson117
Inspiring
July 31, 2015
Answered

Captivate 8 audio cuts off the beginning

  • July 31, 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 1012 views

I'm using Captivate 8 and on several slides (mostly at the beginning of the presentation) the audio is cut off at the beginning once the published course is on the LMS. I deselected the compression options and I added a bit of time before and after the audio clip, but it still gets cut off. If the user plays the entire presentation and "rewinds" or plays it again, the audio is fine. Any thoughts on how to fix this?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer RodWard

    If the 'silence' you added was done via the Captivate Audio dialog then it will be pure silence without any audio data at all and that will just get clipped off by Captivate again.  (Weird issue that has plagued Captivate for all time.)  You need to make sure the silence at the beginning or end of a clip is NOT pure.  So the best thing to do is copy some 'dirty silence' from some pause in the middle of the same clip and paste that into the beginning or end of the clip.  Since this silence isn't pure and has at least some low-level audio data, Captivate will leave it alone.  That might help part of your issue.

    Another thing is to make sure there is at least one blank slide with no objects or audio right at the beginning of your project.  NEVER start a project with a slide that needs to have audio playing immediately.  Captivate seems to benefit from having a full slide of a second or so to set up BEFORE playing content.

    1 reply

    Erik Lord
    Erik Lord
    Inspiring
    July 31, 2015

    The 'adding a bit of time' at the front of each audio clip has resolved such issues for me. How much time are you providing? Give it a half-second, or a full second, or even two..

    Do you have any preload percentage setup? If at 0, try 25% or 50%. That'll delay the start of your course bu hopefully not by a lot and allow the slides to get started 'on time'.

    Oh, and I don't think you want to deselect compression options. Sure, that may have a slight impact on actual playback, but it will also make the audio file sizes larger, which means longer to download, which means they may get skipped as the slide has already started playing.

    If anything, you may want to *increase* the compression (but not so much is sounds bad).

    D
    Dawson117Author
    Inspiring
    July 31, 2015

    Hi Eric,

    Thanks for the info. BTW, this is only a 5 minute course if that matters. I have the pre-loader set to 100%. I will select the compression options again. I do have space on the timeline before and after the audio clip. I also have a second of silence at the beginning of the clip itself, however, if you look at the clip on the timeline, you don't see the silence at the beginning. On the timeline, it appears that the audio clip begins exactly at the moment the narration begins. If you open the clip to edit, you do see the silence. I read somewhere else that a trick is to add a second of white noise to fool Captivate into thinking there is actual audio there. I'll try that. I don't know if it matters, but the audio is set to Near CD Bitrate and Constant Bitrate. Also, under the Project Start Options, it is set to Auto Play.

    RodWard
    Community Expert
    RodWardCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    August 1, 2015

    If the 'silence' you added was done via the Captivate Audio dialog then it will be pure silence without any audio data at all and that will just get clipped off by Captivate again.  (Weird issue that has plagued Captivate for all time.)  You need to make sure the silence at the beginning or end of a clip is NOT pure.  So the best thing to do is copy some 'dirty silence' from some pause in the middle of the same clip and paste that into the beginning or end of the clip.  Since this silence isn't pure and has at least some low-level audio data, Captivate will leave it alone.  That might help part of your issue.

    Another thing is to make sure there is at least one blank slide with no objects or audio right at the beginning of your project.  NEVER start a project with a slide that needs to have audio playing immediately.  Captivate seems to benefit from having a full slide of a second or so to set up BEFORE playing content.

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