How do I significantly reduce load time for a 100-200MB size WBT?

[kukhna]

We have a large sized WBT that can be accessed by clicking on a link from an application site. The WBT is about 200MB and the load time is extremely long. I reduced the size down to 115MB but still face the issue. Any other suggestions on how to reduce load time? The 115MB WBT Audio compression is set at 64kbps and jpg quality is set at 50%. I also set the preloader settings to 10%. Please help!

[Erik Lord]

Is your audio stereo? Ensuring its mono will help a little.

Yeah, you probably don't want to reduce audio or image quality any further (but could try to see if it would help).

Any unused items in your library? Delete all unused items. They are supposedly ignored and not included with the project when published, but can't hurt to get rid of them (then 'save as' the project to a new file) just as something to try.

Otherwise:

1) faster or less-busy network or internet connection

2) cut the project into two separate projects

3) any video in the project? reduce the size of the videos (i.e. a 30mb 1024x768 video is still 30mb even if you just scale it down to 800x600)...and same principle with images; be sure all media is sized outside the project to the actual size you need IN the project.

[Lilybiri]

What is the Preloader percentage set at in Preferences, Project, Start and End? If it is the default 100%, you can reduce it to a lower percentage.

I suppose Audio is already set to Mono, that is the default setting.

Avoid rescaling images within Captivate, better import the images in the wanted resolution. You could lower the slide quality for slides where you don't have images. Avoid big assets like audio, video on the first slide of your file.

Deleting unused items in the Library has no effect on the output size, Erik. I never get rid of them, and use a lot of external libraries as well. Only used items will be responsible for the output size.

[Erik Lord]

The OP notes she set the preloader to 10%, so I think that's as best she can do...as long as the rest of the piece loads ok as its running. Maybe setting it even lower would be something to try though.

I know we disagree on the 'unused items' thing - you always like to post the opposite view when I state that. And I've never done a deep test to see if a piece with unused items vs no unused items varies in size difference; so maybe it's a useless thing to do. BUT I like a clean library and I don't trust that unused items make the piece inefficient to some degree. So I will always recommend people clean their libraries

[RodWard]

Your project is too big and by the sound of it you have probably already reduced the quality too far in an attempt to get it to load faster.

You need to break your project up into smaller modules of about 20 meg maximum.  Only then will you stand any chance of getting decent load times.

[kukhna]

Thank you all for your help! I have the preloader set to 10% and audio is mono by default. The WBT is broken up into 12 lessons but they are about 200MB when aggregated. I was able to reduce the project down to 115MB which improved the load time little but still takes about 30 minutes for all 12 lessons to download. There are no videos in our project and I deleted unused items for all lessons. Maybe it's the internet connection?

[Erik Lord]

OH!

So you have individual courses but have combined them all into one course with...the Aggregator?

Well, yup, it's going to be a large package.

Can you NOT use the Aggregator? Use a webpage to list out the individual lessons, which users select one by one?

Any distinct advantage of the aggregated package?

If that's the way you need to present then I think you're probably as best as you can be...

And overall, yes, the user's net connection is definitely going to affect how quickly these load...