Audio doesn't play first time through

[Whitlowe]

I have a CP4 project that I have loaded into our LMS (Moodle). I have a text slide at the beginning and the pre-loader set to 10% to allow a little bit of loading time before the presentation starts. However, when I go to the LMS to try it out I often find the video portion will start playing but the audio won't play at all. Then I close the project down, re-open it and play it again and the audio works on the second time through and each successive time. Any idea why it doesn't play on the first time through? I think some users might get frustrated and think it is not working and just close the whole thing down.

This has happened with other projects, so I don't think it is an error in this particular file, but perhaps in some setting with the way I am creating it? Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Whitney

[Erik Lord]

Maybe the audio hasn't had enough time to download? When you relaunch, it's now there/preloaded/cached?

What if you increase the preload time - does that help?

When you integrate the audio into a given slide, don't have it 'flush' against the left side of the timeline. Give it a little buffer, like .5 seconds, from the start of the timeline to where the audio should play. In fact, I add a .5 buffer to both sides of audio layers as this seems to solve a few problems, those most notably in my experience, early cut-off of audio between slides.

HTH
Erik

[Russ_E]

I agree with Erik.  10% does sound a bit too low.

Try going the opposite route (80 - 100%) and see if that eliminates the issue.

If it does, then you can experiment to find the right balance.

Russ

[Whitlowe]

Erik & Russ:

Thanks very much for that information. I tried those options and that definitely helped! Just so that I understand-- does audio load slower than video, vice versa, or do they both load at the same time? From what I get with your posts it is better to have more of it load before the presentation starts. Is that correct?

Thanks again,

Whitney

[Erik Lord]

Unless you have FLV files embedded in your CP project, you don't really have any 'video'. CP, as you likely know, is just a series of screenshot images. Individual images load a LOT faster than video. So in a Captivate file, unless you're embedding actual video, the largest assets are almost always the audio tracks.

So with that preface, yes, audio is the slowest thing to load in the CP project...usually...so you should offer more time to allow it to get to the user's machine before playback begins.

The tradeoff with long preload times is making the user wait. Heck, if the users are really patient, preload the whole project first to ensure super-smooth playback! But that's not likely... I think the default preloader value is 40%, which seems like a reasonable and effective balance between how long the user has to wait for the project to start and getting enough of the content to the user's machine to ensure smooth playback.

Good luck with the project!
Erik

[Whitlowe]

Erik:

Thanks very much for this input. I did have some FLV files embedded in the project, but I put them later on in there so there would be a little more download time. The audio starts almost right away and what you were saying makes perfect sense. I'll opt for that more standard 40% download time in all future projects.

Thanks again!

Whitney