How may I configure an excellent sound/video recording with Captivate 9?

[mrmister1]

Hi

I'm new using Adobe Captivate 9 and I have some very important questions.

I've been using other software, like Camtasia, which is more easy to understand but not so powerful as Captivate, so I would like to use Captivate.

My problem is I don't know how:

1) Configure the audio recording to grab audio with an excellent quality, studio quality. I tried with Captivate 8 to capture the screen, and the resulting audio was ugly, like a phone in the 60s... I need an excellent audio capture. How may I configure this?

2) Video capture. With Adobe Captivate 8, I tried to capture the screen, and the result was like losing framerate. The capture was not vivid, I want to capture 25 frames per second. How may I adjust the quantity of frames per second when capturing my video?

If you could help me with this, I'd be grateful.

Cheers

[Lilybiri]

From your questions I think you only want to create passive videos? In that case, keep to Camtasia. Captivate has Video Demo, which can be used as alternative but Camtasia is the better tool for that purpose. Captivate is a real eLearning authoring tool, which means that it is much better at creating interactive courses. Those courses are 'slide-based' even if you talk about software tutorials (but Captivate is not limited to that, you can also create soft-skills courses etc). Whereas a video is published to mp4 mostly, interactive courses are published either to SWF or to HTML.

To answer your questions:

1. Audio quality depends on the first place on the used voice and the microphone. There is a big difference between a professional voice over specialist and someone not trained. Same for microphones. Although I sometimes create my VO, I will do that not with Captivate but with Audition, part of the Creative Cloud. A free alternative is Audacity.  Those dedicated applications allow to create professional audio clips, provided that you have the right equipment.
2. When you read my intro, you know already that Video Demo, which results in a cpvc file, and published in a mp4 file is not better at all than Camtasia. The used framerate for the mp4 is 15fps.
   However if you create a normal, slide-based cptx-project for an interactive course, the default framerate is 30fps. I am not sure which type of file you want to use to create the 'video's.

[mrmister1]

I don't understand very well what is a Passive Video.

I want to create videos for Youtube. I have seen in the Captivate 9 you can export for youtube.

Yes, basically what I do are software videotutorials in Youtube, however I cannot use SWF to publish a video, I need an mp4 for youtube.

I have a professional microphone, an Audiotechnica, however, I think I tried Captivate 7 or 8, don't remember well, and I did not know why after the capture screen, the recorded voice was so bad recorded... that was like recorded in a tape from the 60s. My mic works fine, and I record perfectly with all the software, for example, with Audicity my recordings have an amazing quality.

So I guess captivate is compressing my audio when recording the screen, and that is exactly what I don't know how to configure?

So let's imagine I want to record my narration in an mp3 with a quality of 128 kbps.

How may I configure that?

Regarding the fps I would like to have the freedom to adjust when I want certain frame rate.

If I am recording a videotutorial, perhaps with 15 frames per second, is okay, but if I don't like the results, perhaps I would like to change that value for 20 fps.

So basically I don't know the steps to configure the quality of the recorded audio?

And I don't know how to configure the desired frame rate in the my video recording?

Could you tell me the steps, please, to change those values to the values I want?

Cheers

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

What is meant by a "passive video" is a video that people simply sit back and observe. Same as any other video one sees on YouTube.

Captivate is capable of creating interactive content. And that type of content cannot be just watched on YouTube because you intend for the user to interact in some way. Perhaps by clicking buttons or hotspot areas of some sort.

I think if your intent is only to create things you plan on uploading to YouTube, you should likely avoid Captivate and perhaps stick with Camtasia Studio or another software.

Cheers... Rick

[Lilybiri]

Rick answers exactly what I meant: if you only want to create video, stay with Camtasia, do not use cpvc files. Only if you need interactive eLearning courses Captivate has a lot more to offer. Interactivity demands output to HTML or SWF, which you cannot upload to YouTube, but needs to be deployed in a LMS or on a webserver.

Import uncompressed WAV files to Captivate, not already compressed MP3 files. Indeed, when publishing Captivate will compress to MP3, just like it will compress images as well for file size reasons.

[mrmister1]

I have been using Camtasia the last three years and I am a bit tired of it.

No text justification.

No 64 bits.

Old fashion captions...

And they don't release new updates, so I am really bored of it.

I've been taking a look tonight to Captivate 9 and it has a lot of cool effects.

Also, I was able to see where may I configure the audio quality...

However... I am not able to see where can you configure the frame rate when you record the screen? Or perhaps you configure that when you publish the video?

And also, I don't understand the timeline.

May I have multiple video tracks in my timeline?

Sometimes you need to put two videos in action... and having multiple tracks in the timeline, helps a lot...

Cheers

[Lilybiri]

You are looking at the wrong tool. Captivate has never been meant to produce only 'passive' video tutorials, that what Camtasia is much better at. Sorry to repeat: Captivate is an eLearning authoring tool, not a tool to create videos.

I asked in my first answer: what did you create, a CPVC or a CPTX file???? The first type of file is a pure video, can only be published to a video format (mp4) and is similar to Camtasia. No interactions in this type of published format, which is what you are looking after. Such a cpvc project has only one long timeline, and you have some editing possibilities with the dedicated video editor, you can add static objects. Here is a link to a YouTube video which i created long time ago from such a Video Demo (cpvc) project (frame rate 15fps, I used a Shure PG42 microphon for this one):

Simple versus Standard Advanced Action in Adobe Captivate - YouTube

The most used projects in Captivate are slide-based projects, with interactivity and have the extension CPTX. Each slide has its own timeline, which makes managing and synchronizing a lot easier. Pausing for user input is important, can be added by using interactive objects. But that type of project is meant to be published to an interactive output format like HTML5 or SWF. If you want to read about the timeline, here is another link to an old blog post:

Tiny Timeline Tidbits - Captivate blog

Apparently you do not want this type of projects, which (estimation) more than 90% of all Captivate projects are created in.Those projects have a lot of features, you didn't explain what you mean by 'cool effects' at all. The short example movies in my blog are all cptx projects, they are interactive (in this case I used SWF format, you can only watch on a laptop/desktop). Those projects can be published on a Learning Management System, with means that the activity and the scores of the learners can be tracked in gradebooks. The LMS also will manage learner accounts etc. Typical framerate for cptx published projects is 30fps (as mentioned before). That framerate can be changed in Edit, Preferences,

I hope you understand this time why I recommended not to bother with Captivate to create only video, look for another tool because Captivate is overkill.

[mrmister1]

I've been exploring a bit Captivate, and I don't see it allows a multitrack editing in the time line.

So can we have multiple videotracks in the timeline?

Note I'm saying videotracks, I know you can add other kind of tracks to place pictures and so on...

I mean exactly having in the timeline more than one videotrack but in different order...

[ video track 1]

                   [video track 2]

and so on...

Not sure about this

Cheers

[Lilybiri]

If  you use event video, you can add as many videos as you want. Each of them is playing independently of the Captivate UI, has its own control panel. I keep repeating my question, because this answer is for a cptx-file, not for a cpvc-file. Up till now I still don't know what you are using.