How to set the default pre-configuration in Media Encoder when exporting from captivate

[justindancer]

Hi there,

I'm generating SCORM files from Captivate 10.

When I do so, Media Encoder launches automatically and converts all my Captivate video elements using the preconfiguration "Correspondance à la source - haut début" (sorry I'm running in French).

This default preconfiguration is no good for me, I need to generate smaller video files.

My quesiton : How do I change the default preconfiguration that is launched when Captivate exports a SCORM

OR

How can I change the behaviour of the default preconfiguration.

Thanks in advance!

Justin

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

What format are the videos in before publishing, and which format are you publishing to (I.e. SWF or HTML5)?

[justindancer]

They are in FLV format and I'm publishing to HTML5. Media Encoder converts them to huge MP4.

[Lilybiri]

FLV is flash-based, you cannot use them in HTML5 output at all. Most recent versions of AME don't even have conversion to FLV anymore. Try to convert them manually to MP4 using AME.- and import the mp4 in Captivate.

[justindancer]

Thanks for the suggestion, if I can't figure out how to do it automatically I will try it.

The AME recognizes the FLV and converts it to MP4, and the HTML5 output works fine. The problem comes from the settings used to transform the FLV to MP4, it generates a huge file. I want to automatically reduce the file size for use on tablets.

Is there any setting in Captivate to specify output video format that would be recognised by AME?

Is there any way to change the default encoding settings in AME, so that when Captivate calls AME it uses the settings I want?

Thanks,

Justin

[Lilybiri]

Which version of AME?  Since it takes so many formats, I doubt it is possible to set a default conversion from FLV to a specific MP4. Since I never use FLV since a couple of years, only publish to HTML5, I should have to search. I am using AME CC, you can batch process a llot of tiles at once. Sorry, not much help of course.

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

What I was going to suggest was do the conversion ahead of time. That way you can select the settings you wish to use in Media Encoder. Then reapply your videos into your learning project. Once you have MP4s then Media Encoder won't launch at all during the publishing stage. 

Focus on your bitrate if you want to keep the file size down. Try some experiments and see what you consider acceptable quality, lower the bitrate some more until you are happy with the quality and the file size.

[Erik Lord]

I agree with others, just convert your videos outside of the CP publishing process. Not only does that give you better control of the settings, but also means that since the videos are already MP4, the publish process will not have to launch AME every time you make a change to the project and re-publish.

However, for sake of the original question, I don't know the answer but suspect AME either runs a default preset or the last-used pre-set. So if you have the inclination, experiment. Open AME and look for the default preset. Note the original settings then make your changes. Then also create your own custom preset and run a quick test file, so it's the last one used.

Close AME and republish your CP file. Can you tell which AME preset is then used? Any difference in the video output?

If you're not sure, maybe make the preset changes to something obvious, like make the video really small (i.e. 320x240) if possible, so you can tell if that preset was used.

BUT overall, agreed that best to just do it outside the publish process as others have suggested.

[justindancer]

Hi there,

Thanks you Erik and Paul for very helpful answers that almost get me there.

1) I  love the idea of changing the default preset, but after searching everywhere, have not found how to do that. If you know how to do that, it would solve my problem. And unfortunately, changing the values of the preset automatically chosen by AME does not work, the values are fixed (changeing them creates a custom preset that is not selected automatically).

2) My files are integrated and distributed over multiple (about 50) Captivate projects, so not obvious to batch reencode outside Captivate with my user level. If I could run a batch AME re-encoding that recurses through a directory structure it might work. Further complication: the video files are currently FLV so I think changing them to MP4 outside of Captivate will break my projects.  - I will look into that idea, but If you by any chance know how to do that ...

3) I have experimented with a "last-used preset" but unfortunately that does not work for different files (it seems to work when re-encoding the same file but even there I am not 100% sure) and I have 100+ files to convert.

Thanks guys. I'll try a batch reencode of my files outside Captivate, but it looks like I'm just going to have to reexport all of my Captivate modules and manually intervene when AME reencodes each.

Cheers,

Justin