Is this project appropriate for captivate

I've been trying to accomplish the same thing, and I'd have to agree with jbradley88. SWF to FLV to DVD is the route I've been trying to take. I've had the biggest problems just converting to FLV.

I've used a couple of trial versions of SWF to FLV converters and it converts only the first slide with audio and then ends. If it's possible to convert the SWF fully to FLV then you may be able to get to DVD in order to view on TV's.

Harry, I am late to the game, but I think those who responded were waaaaay too quick to offer alternatives to Captivate. No criticism of earlier posters, I just think some options were too quickly dismissed, or overlooked entirely.

I recently loaned my son my digital camera (a small Canon shirt-pocket item, nothing special) when he went to a private wedding.

During the course of the wedding, he took maybe 80 still shots (1600x1200) and about a half-dozen AVI short movies of special moments, such as kissing the bride and cutting the cake. Then he brought the camera to me at the reception, thanked me, and said "Now do something with it, Dad". LOL! I never saw it coming!

Here is what I did, and how long it took:

1) Changed all stills from 1600x1200 to 800x600 in a batch operation using Photoshop CS3. 2 minutes for operation. Note: All 8x6 images saved to a separate folder during batch operation.

2) Cleaned up red-eye and adjusted brightness/contrast, again in Photoshop CS3. 15 minutes for operation.

3) Opened Captivate 3, and created a new *Image* project. Imported all images in the aforementioned folder to the new project, and saved. 2 minutes for operation.

4) Opened the AVIs in Flash CS3 Video Encoder and in a batch operation, converted the AVI files to FLV. 10 minutes for operation, but I had to teach myself how to use the program since I was a virgin with it.

5) Brought each of the FLVs into Captivate slides. 5 minutes for operation.

6) Rearranged all stills and videos to achieve correct *order* for the movie. 1 hour for operation, but I had to teach my daughter-in-law how to do this in Captivate, since she was at the wedding and I was not - and she has never seen Captivate before.

7) Added voice-over to all the stills in Captivate. 2 hours for operation, but it took so long because I spent the time translating what my son and daughter-in-law were saying behind me for each voice-over ... half the time I was *shushing* the room so I could add audio.

Tools needed: Captivate 3, Flash Video Encoder CS3, Photoshop CS3 ... all Adobe tools.

Total time: 3 hours, 34 minutes, if I added correctly, and half of that was necessary only because I didn't know the *players*, nor had I been present at the event.

Note, I did not include time for burning CDs, because I output it directly to my website as an executable, to be downloaded by participants at will, so no CDs were necessary.

You can take my experience *for what it is worth*. The original question was " Will Captivate 3 do this?", and I am troubled that everyone answered "No". I totally disagree. Burning the output of my Captivate movie to CD would be one extra step, but a Captivate movie can be put on a CD or delivered by the web, or as I did, posted as EXE and left to be downloaded at leisure.

I think we (Adobe and Captivate 3) have everything it takes, not only to do it, but to do it quickly and well.

best wishes~
Larry

It sounds like you're deploying to DVD Video that can be played in a standalone DVD player, so Captivate is a poor choice for you.

Captivate only natively supports deployment to the web as .SWF and to the PC in .EXE format, so you'd have to jump through extra needless steps just to get the same result you're getting now.

Also, assuming it's possible to convert published Captivate SWF files with embedded video to a single DVD Video stream, your video clips would have to undergo several conversions, with possible loss of quality (first to FLV for embedding into Captivate, then back to video for deploying on DVD). For that reason alone, you're much better off keeping things native in Premiere and Encore.

Personally, I'd take my chances with Windows Movie Maker before I try to go the Captivate route.

Captivate is limited in the video department. I'm picturing you putting
together something that will be 15 minutes, 30 minutes or more. I wouldn't
try to do anything like this in Captivate that lasts more than 5 minutes,
and even then, I'd probably prefer to move to Premier etc as you already do.

Cheep and cheerful though it is, you might find Windows Movei Maker (Built
in to XP and Vista) would do an admirable job, even though it has
limitations to your current method. It certainly should be possible to build
something quicker. You can probably test it out in half an hour or so and
decide for yourself. It's easy and intuitive to use.

However, ultimately I think you would prefer the professional tools and
results that you are used to, time consuming or not.

Steve


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Adobe Community Expert: eLearning, Mobile and Devices
My blog - http://stevehoward.blogspot.com/