Trying to combine multiple large CPT files but it keeps crashing. Any advice?

[sages23907682]

Hi everyone. My team and I used Captivate 12.3 to build a course. We didn't know there were a million versions of Captivate that were good for different things. We just used the default program on the site. We used it because we need to convert the files to an elearning option via SCORM. It has taken a month or 18 hour days to build this thing.  

I now have 10 separate cpt files. Originally I thought maybe I could branch each CPT Together somehow, but because we are selling the course itself, and wont be managing it, we need to combine it all into one file. Each module is about 10GB (roughly). Lots of video.

When I copy and paste one class into another, it keeps crashing. That's after just trying to merge module 1 and 2. We have ten. We can't rebuild the whole thing from scratch. What can we do? Any ideas?

[sages23907682]

Also, on a separate note, any files we do copy and paste successfully, many of them become dark. So a slide that was white in the module, coverts to black. A photo that was used was copied 20 shades darker. Not sure why that's happening either. All advice would be appreciated!

[Lilybiri]

Sorry but a file of that size can never be a responsive project. Which smartphone could ever load a file of several GB? I try to keep the output file size of a responsive project to keep to max. 30MB.

You need at least to stream the videos.

[sages23907682]

I'm not creating it for a smartphone. It's meant to operate on an LMS like blackboard or Moodle. What am I overlooking?

[sages23907682]

I will say, if anyone encounters this post, the solution that has worked for me best is literally clearing the cache and restarting the computer every time I copy one module into the main one. This clears away enough bulk to continue copying. As for the dark files etc, I believe this was a limitation of space, as when I have used this approach, I have not encountered this issue again.

With that said, what @Lilybiri  said has me concerned. So I need to figure out how to correct my mistakes as seamlessly as possible. Right now I have an enormous master file using 12.3. All I wanna do is convert it to SCORM for use on LMS like Blackboard (it will be used in educational institutions--- I imagine it will present best on a laptop). I read multiple places that Captivate was the perfect app to do this with. So my partner and I have tried to figure this out. If Captivate is not meant to create a large file SCORM, and should be kept to no more than 30 MB, then we have made a terrible error and we are running out of time. I have no idea why I havent seen this anywhere else before. I was literally told by multiple parties to use captivate. Is there anything I can do to salvage this project? 

[Lilybiri]

It would have been better to use Captivate Classic, which enables to create a non-responsive project.

But even in that case you would need to reduce the size of all items, and - as I already mentioned - try to stream the video clips instead of embedding them. I feel also worried, because most LMSs have also a limit to the file size which can be uploaded (at least that was the case for Blackboard which I used in college).

The number of 30MB was what I try to keep for responsive projects which will be used often on phones. Due to the lack of a Project library it is not easy to see the most greedy items in your projects, those to be reduced in file size.  Is there really no way to split the project and let the LMS take care of the sequence of the modules?

BTW 1 month is not long for an eLearning course at all.

[sages23907682]

Thanks! Well, I think the issue is with multiple different SCORM files, it can get confusing or messy. It's definitely something we can try if thats the only option. But even then some files would be 10-15GB. I didn't know LMS had these limits. Our course is far from the first course to use video, so how do others do it?

You mention streaming the clip. We could upload the clips to YouTube as unpublished videos, but then how do we stream that within the course? If we could embed the video in the file without actually hosting it in the file (kinda like how you can post a video on a website that is hosted elsewhere), that could work. But I don't see anything like that in the app. Am I overlooking something?

[sages23907682]

Sorry, I do see an option to replace the video with a hosting link. I tried it and the link posted, but there is this weird gray screen with 3 dots overlaying the video for some reason Any ideas on why that's there?

Other than that, if we use this method, it'll be a lot of links to YT. Can you forsee any issues we may face with this method? Thanks again for the help!

[sages23907682]

Sorry @Lilybiri , I meant to include this in the last post. Not trying to bombard you. But this is a pic of the image I described. 

[RodWard]

YouTube will block playback of video content if it believes the content is being hijacked and played inside another system.  This could be why you are seeing these dots.  YouTube thinks your LMS is pirating your content.

Another streaming solution you might consider is Vimeo. Like YouTube you can use it to stream videos inside your Captivate content, but Vimeo's business model is based on you paying for annual subscriptions rather than recouping costs via advertising.

Either way, I have to agree with Lilibiri that you should be streaming your content rather than trying to include the videos as download files.  Your end user experience will be vastly improved because the streaming server can adjust the video stream according to the end user's available bandwidth.

You need to do some testing of the different options before you try to roll out this course or else you might find yourself seriously embarassed by the responses from your target audience.

[sages23907682]

Thanks. Once we have one thing figured out, another problem pops up lol.

We considered moving to Vimeo but they have limitations on bandwidth that can get pretty expensive as far as I know. From what I read, we'd have a 2TB max. For a class that runs roughy 100 GB of video (rounded up for easy math), if it's GB-to-GB, that would be like 20 views. Unless I'm misunderstanding how it works. I can look back into it though.

As for testing, how would you suggest we do that? Do you mean test different servers?

We were gonna test it on a cloud first. I can already see this falling apart and becoming a mess. Last thing we need is this not working, which is what we wanna avoid. 

[Lilybiri]

Example of a media server is Adobe Media Server (AMS). More details under this link:

Adobe Media Server Learn & Support

[Lilybiri]

Same image as what I see on my Quest 3 while loadin an application in memory, but it will take longer in your case since the loading is from an external server. But embedded videos will also take time to load when entering the video slide, have no illusions. Best would be a real streaming server of course.

I hope you did see my comment about the file size being a problem for several LMSs?

[sages23907682]

Thanks. I figured since we moved to YouTube, this would alleviate the file size issues, no? The files seem much smaller now, but could there still be a problem?

When you say a real streaming server, can you give an example of what you mean? Do you mean something like Vimeo or something like a cloud?

[RodWard]

Vimeo and YouTube are both streaming media service providers.  They just have different business models to recoup costs for their services.

Just hosting your videos "in the cloud", i.e. on a web server, does not of itself give you a streaming service.  It's a special type of web server that hosts your content and is able to detect the end user's available bandwith when they consume your video content so that the server knows which of several versions of your video the user can receive without buffering.