File size increase Captivate 2017

May depend on how you're 'importing' a video.

How mb-large is the video your importing?

If you import it as 'event', it isn't actually imported 'into' the project, it's an external link (and thus, the video would have to be distributed with the published project). If you're doing that, the file size of the project shouldn't increase much at all.

If you're importing it as a multi-slide vido, however, you are actually importing the video into the project and it's taking up significant tineline space, likely across multiple slides.

That's great for timing other objects to video progress, but definitely increases the size of the overall project.

Best solution is to put the video on a streaming server and use a webobject to reference and load-in that video...except you lose direct timing between the video and other screen elements.

When you say "it increases in size to 18 MB.", do you mean your Capitviate Project file grows to 18MB, or do you see your MP4 video file in the Captivate project Library shows that it is now 18MB?

In my experice, when adding MP4 files to a Captivate project, they do appear as the same size as they were when I imported them.

I just went and tested it again, even opened up good ole CP 2017 like you have, I took a 13.5MB random MP4 and imported it (via Event Video) - it shows the same size.

For sure your over all Captivate project file size will always grow when adding video (or audio) directly to Captivate. If your project file was already at 8MB, adding a video file for sure would increase the size by its own size + exisitng file size.

We use a ton of video in our projects, both streamed and embed into Captivate....On a side note, if you are looking for an extraordinary free tool to compress video small as possible for use in Captivate....I'd strongly suggest checking out HandBrake! Its an amazing tool, we have been using it for several years and has proven to be an excellent asset for hepling to make our produced videos of all types small as possible. Our video studio people even use the heck out of Handbrake when the need arises.