Best Recommendations for using limited resources for a good Captivate Program

[Steve Whiteford]

I have some experience using Captivate and now want to create an online program. I'm seeking the best approach. What might work best?

Record Slide show and audio on Zoom, and edit for Captivate.

Use Zoom to record speaker video segments only.

Use captures of PowerPoint slides between video segments, and add V.O.

Record PowerPoint and audio and use on Captivate.

Record Voice over of slides on Zoom, and add slide shots over the recording.

This is meant to be a simple PowerPoint training with Speaker VIdeo between segments, and include testing. Which of the above might work best?

[RodWard]

The 'best approach' is to design your e-learning module according to the list of learning objectives that have been defined for your specific target audience within the limitations of the technology they will be using to consume the content.

Perhaps you can answer these questions:

• What technology will your target audience be using? (PC, tablet or mobile phone)
• What type of content will you be delivering?  (e.g. software simulation, soft-skills training, etc)
• If your current content a PowerPoint deck and you are only intending to capture a narrator talking while presenting each PPT slide, what advantage is ZOOM giving that you don't already have with Captivate's own Video Demo functionality?

[Steve Whiteford]

Thanks Ron. 

I haven't tried Captivate's recording possibilities yet. I had assumed others might be higher quality. 

I will be using Sensei on my web as an lms plug-in and people may be purchasing this program and viewing it on a variety of platforms.

Will Captivate handle single recorded animated PPT slides inserted into the program? I only have a few with animation. In the past I've experienced sound slippage with PPT used in other softwares. I may use photo captures of most slides in Captivate so I don't have to rebuild them. I will also insert video of me as instructor periodically. The program will have 4 segments and come in at a little over an hour.

I have produced Captivate programs in the past and have had BASIC training.

What would be the best slide size to cover multiple devices? 1280 X 720?

I appreciate your questions and helpfulnees.

[Steve Whiteford]

Also. I don't see a way to record video on Captivate. Isn't that only for screenshots vs. actual video?

[RodWard]

I do not recommend trying to bring an animated PPT into Captivate.  The PPT slide animations often do not transport well (in my experience).  When you bring a PPT deck into Captivate each slide really just becomes a background graphic.  Any animation on that slide is usually lost. 

You can potentially just use Captivate's Video Demo capture option to record the PPT presentation as you deliver it with narration.  But that means that nothing is really editable afterwards because you just end up with a video file.

If you are starting with a PPT, you migh as well forget trying to support multiple devices and different screen sizes.  You are going to end up with a fixed aspect ratio and there's not really anything you can do about accommodating different screen orientations.  If supporting different devices (PC, tablet, phone) is important, then you would need to consider rebuilding your entire project from the ground up in Captivate using responsive design.  But that would be a lot more work, and quite frankly trying to support both landscape and portraith orientations in the same project is not usually worth it.

[Lilybiri]

Why use Captivate at all? Just use PPT... This is not looking like an eLearning course needing a real eLearning authoring tool. A PPT plugin could do the trick. Captivate has Video Demo to capture video and your webcam but you want to use Zoom????  Snagit and or Camtasia would be a better choice as well than Zoom.

[Steve Whiteford]

Video Demo capture can also use webcam?

[Lilybiri]

Video demo can capture webcam at the same time as the screen. During editing you can switch between both as wanted. Moreover Video Demo has a dedicated, non-destructive editor.

[Steve Whiteford]

I'm getting a message that says - capture is disallowed since hihg-density display was detected. Pelase set Dip1Awareness = 1'AdobeCapitvate.ini and restart the program. I don't know how to do that

[RodWard]

That error message indicates you are using multiple monitors and one of them is probably 4K while the other one is just full HD, am I correct?

If you record your project in 4K resolution, you are just going to end up with a much bigger file size than would be necessary to communicate your information and the end user playback experience will be compromised.  Furthermore, even if you did change the AdobeCaptivate.ini file setting to allow high density display recording, you would still need to have both monitors on the same resolution anyway in order to do the capture. 

So, the usual way around this error message is just to change your display resolution on the 4k monitor to be the same as your other one (e.g. set both to Full HD 1920x1080).  You can also simply disconnect your high density display when you need to perform the capture and reconnect it later when you need to do some editing again in Captivate.

[Steve Whiteford]

Thank you, Ron.

This only came up when I wanted to record with my new external camera that I use for Zoom. I was going to record through that quality camera from Captivate. Might it work if I just recorded through Zoom and edited and added that recording to Captivate, or would I be up against the same issue?

I really appreciate your advice. I guess I'll keep this simple like my skillset. But I will ask again what screen size you recommend for the project? 800 X 600? to work with most computers/tablets?

[RodWard]

If you are talking about the DPI Awareness error message, it's not the video camera but the monitor you are capturing on that usually triggers the error.  The basic principle is that Captivate likes all monitors being captured to be using the same resolution, e.g. Full HD 1920x1080.  If it is seeing your high quality web cam as a 'monitor' then you need to make sure that the screen you are capturing on is matching the resolution of the web cam you are using to capture the narrator video.

Personally, I would not recommend recording through ZOOM as the default video quality tends to be quite low.  You can tweak the video settings in ZOOM to improve the quality, but it's still going to be whatever ZOOM wants to give you on the day.

As far as the screen size, if this is just for recording a PPT presentation and there's no fine-detailed content where precise resolution is necessary, then 800 x 600 might be OK.   However, I would suggest that nowadays most people are using monitors or devices that are more likely to have a 16:9 aspect ratio rather than the old 4:3 ratio that was common before widescreen monitors became popular.  If your PPT is already set to 4:3 ration then you may not want to change it.  But if you are still developing the content, I would normally recommend setting the PPT to 16:9 widescreen format.

[Steve Whiteford]

Thanks again, Ron.

I may need to opt for using my Canon 100 for video, or revert to a different computer cam.

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

If this project were given to me, I would likely record everything in Camtasia, including the PowerPoint slides, edit it in Camtasia and publish it as an MP4. Camtasia even lets you add multiple choice questions and publish for SCORM. Captivate may not be the right tool in this case.