#1 2009-11-08 21:20:26

**_RA_**

Problem with project

I am a new user of Captivate and am having problems with capturing a project in full motion recording mode.  I am just capturing an application being displayed in Internet Explorer.  It is only about 15 minutes long with about 6 slides.  Everytime I preview it or publish it, it produces errors. On some compters (used to test the project) it stops completely and gives a run time error message, on my computer it starts displaying red squares on the screen until the entire screen is red and finally just stops.
I have looked through everything and do not see any references to this problem.  Can anyone help?

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Problem with project

FMR's are notoriously large and difficult files to deal with. I would stay away from FMR recording unless necessary. Doing the automatic recording method will give you a better finished product with easier editing and customization.

**_RA_**

Re: Problem with project

Thank you for this information.  After viewing a best practices presentation, I realized that this was probably the problem.  I believe this should be better documented in the program documentation.  I did not think 15 minutes was that long of a project.

**_robva65_**

Re: Problem with project

RA,

No, 15 mins is not that long.  But the problem isn't your "program" or project length.  Rather, it has to do with the manner in which FMR's are ultimatley recorded and then published.  The gist is that a full motion recording is essentially the same thing as recording a video feed from a web cam.  And it also offers the same set of problems, not the least of which, as Jorma mentions, is file size.

Although you technically could get away w/ recording anything while in FMR mode, the fact is that the resulting file is ENORMOUS compared to the "screens" that are created after publishing slides in Captivate.  And what's worse is the fact that FMR content ends up as a SINGLE ENTITY.  Look at this way: an FMR is a "video" recording of everything you do.

The problem?  For starters, the longer the FMR object, the longer it'll take to load.  And if anything goes wrong with it, you can kiss the playback functionality of the FMR goodbye.  And yes, that means if you've got viewers looking at your content w/ slower connection speeds, or worse, your server's got bandwidth issues b/c enough folks are hitting it, then you're looking at playback performance issues.  Period.

There are methods to avoid capturing in FMR mode and they've been documented in a number of places, including this Tech Note from Adobe:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/135/135575aa.html

Hope that helps!

Rob

http://www.robrode.com/yabb/

**_RA_**

Re: Problem with project

Thanks again.  This was a good explanation of the problem.  I will have to rethink my approach.