Audio File Degradation in Captivate

I recently recorded an MP3 file with Audacity in a professional audio booth and when I put that file into Captivate and play it on the timeline it sounds great- no quality degradation. However, when I preview the project in a "Web Browswer" or simply just the project it sounds all scratchy and the sound quality went down significantly. I put this same file into a blank project and previewed it again and it sounded great. I then tried to see if I changed the audio preferences in my system preferences and couldn't find anything. I am hoping someone can help me figure out why my audio quality makes a great sound file sound scratchy ONLY when I click publish or preview and not in the timeline?

I may have found a solution but still unsure why the audio file was degraded.
I created that presentation from a template and maybe some of the settings created made the audio files bad. So I copied and pasted my presentation into a new presentation and it now works great.
I am still looking for an answer to why the MP3 file wasn't working well in that presentation. Thanks!

Similar Messages

Imported audio files are repeating same audio on objects in a slide

Hi
I can't find anything here that mentions the problem I am having.
I am using Captivate 4. And Neospeechs desktop VoiceText program to record audio files outside of Captivate. They are saved as WAV files, then I import the audio into Captivate.
I have various objects on a slide. For example, I have six text Rollover Captions. When you roll over them, some text is displayed. I have attached my audio files to these rollover objects. So, I would have audio1.wav, audio2.wav, audio3.wav etc and these play when you roll over the captions.
The issue I am having, is that when I Publish or Preview the project, sometimes the wrong audio file is playing upon rollover. Usually the first couple of caption/file combinations will work, so I get audio1.wav for caption1 and audio2.wav for caption2, but then say for captions 3,4,5,6 I am still getting audio1.wav playing!
I have doubled checked everything and the correct audio files are attached to the captions. And they all play correctly in Edit view.
I've just noticed this has happened again in a different Captivate 4 project, where I have about 6 lines of Text Animation, with an audio file for each text animation. They have been distributed across the timeline so that the text animations do not overlap, and yet I am still hearing imported audio files repeated.
If anyone can help to shed any light on this, i'd be grateful, as I'm totally stumped!
thanks
Lolly

Have you got the correct selection buttons at the bottom left of the Files panel enabled under Sort by:?

Reducing audio file sizes

I'm using imported audio files in my captivate. They were
encoded at 128 and are mp3. When I import them I think captivate
converts to WAV? I don't know why that would happen. But when I
change the audio encoding settings from the default of 64kbps to
32kbps and then publish, the first thing that happens is that it
shows that it is converting each WAV to MP3 (even though I imported
the files as mp3). Also, it sounds awful encoded at 32. I tried it
at 48 and it still doesn't sound that great.
Is there a better way to reduce file size with audio files? I
thought about going to the source files and re-encoding in audacity
and then importing. Would that help? If I did that, what would I
set the encoding rate to?
Thanks,

Your observations are dead-on. The Adobe Captivate
methodology is to have a high resolution sound container (WAV) and
then let the user compile to other sound quality levels. You are
correct that your MP3 is being converted to WAV.
There have been several posts here about sound quality in CP4
and I am in complete agreement with them about the poor quality of
sound. It appears that the sound driver is choppy in CP4.
Some of the users and active Forum members have done sound
experiments with regard to size. It appears that higher encoding
rates have a minor effect on file size. Go ahead and crank up the
sound quality and monitor your file size. With a small increment in
file size, you can improve the sound quality. My experiments for
getting "good" sound quality have produced only "fair" results and
I find the sound quality to less than what I want in almost all
conditions.
Please voice your complain to the Adobe Tech Support people.
They need to hear this over and over again to get this flaw
repaired.
My second pet-peeve about sound is a lack of a user defined
sound level (gain) in the form of a slider pre-amp. The automatic
setting seems to over-boost the sound levels and that introduces
white noise at low sound levels (soft passages or longer pauses).
If you find the same thing, please add that to your complaint when
you contact technical support.
The sound issue needs to be put to Adobe for proper repair
and I'm not alone in trying to "turn up the volume" on this issue.
Joe C.

Can't locate PowerPoint audio files in Captivate 5

I imported a PowerPoint presentation with audio narration into Captivate 5. The audio plays fine, but I don't know where to find the audio files. They don't appear in the timeline or anywhere else.

i know this is an old post, but i wonder if you might know how to solve this similar problem?
i rec'd a PowerPoint 2010 file and when i bring it into Captivate the audio plays, but i can't find the files. The narration was done in PowerPoint. Captivate has the Closed Captions greyed out...so i can't even cut and past the slide notes into closed captions if i want to do that as a low tech workaround.
any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Anne

Captivate 6.0 - issue with using audio files as voicover

We are using Adobe Captivate 6.0. We are using imported audio files as the voicover for the slides. While plyaing the final published exe, it runs normal. However, if I use the slidebar at the bottom of the slide for moving back and forth, the audio goes away while the slide continues to play. Can anyone please advise as to why this could be happening and how to resolve the issue? Appreciate any urgent help on this.

Hello there,
Have you inserted the audio on the slides or on the objects?
Can you increase the slide quality to 24-bit (slide properties), then republish the project and see whether that helps?
Thanks.

Audio quality degraded when imprting FLV file to Flash FLA

Hi,
I have created a FLV file using Adobe Media Encoder CS5.
I have played it back on Several Media players and it sound fine.
I import it into a Scene in Flash CS5 aand when I preview the Scene the audio has degraded and sounds terrible.
The audio is mono at 48 kbps.
I cannot find any controls or options to edit the audio of the video.
I have rendered it out several times using different settings but it alway plays back the same highly compressed tinny sound.
Any advise?

Try with your publish settings in flash to adjust your audio quality while publishing, look into the below screenshot:

Captivate 2 Vista unable to import audio files

Hi
I have had an audio problem with Captivate 2 and Vista -
There is a hot fix to enable recording which works.I did that
... . but I am unable to import audio files.. even those that came
with Captivate 2 in the gallery give me the same error message..
unable to decode & import wav/mp3 file.
Does anyone have a solution!! Need to do a demo next week!!
thanks
phil

Hi Phil
I don't suppose using Captivate on Windows XP is an option
for you? This would seem to be a Vista related issue. Captivate 2
may work to an extent on Vista, but it would appear this may be one
of the "gotchas" one may encounter when using it in this
environment.
The good news is that Captivate 3 was announced today and
will work on Vista. I know this doesn't help you immediately, but
will provide an answer before too long.
Cheers... Rick

Captivate 5.5 keeps importing same audio file to additional screens instead of newly chosen file

I split an MP3 file between three screens at the beginning of the training and all went well. Now I am trying to add another file to another set of two screens further in the training - once I choose "Distribute the audio file over several slides" it reimports the first MP3 file from the beginning of the training (when I first chose that option to distribute). I've tried over and over again to import the new file to these new slides, it simply will not import the new file, it keeps adding the first file that I split up. Has anyone seen this before?
Much thanks in advance!
Biggi

Hi MagicBBB,
A patch to address this issue is available. Check for updates from the application through Help >> Updates.
Also have a look at the release notes here. http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/881/cpsid_88142.html
Please try out the patch and let me know.
Thanks,
Ashwin Bharghav B
Adobe Captivate Team

Captivate 8: audio file doesn't work when I add it to an object slide

Hi everyone,
I have problems with the audio in Captivate 8. This doesn't work when I press an object slide (button) that has an audio file incorporated. This issue doesn't happen when I add sound to an individual slide.
I have tried to fix the problem by changing the preferences, but nothing
Any suggestion is welcomed!!
Evelyn

An audio file that is attached to an object or a slide, will play when that object or slide become visible. I don't know what you mean by 'has an audio file incorporated'? Do you mean that it is attached to the button in its audio part of the Properties, which is in the Options tab? In that case the audio will just play when that button gets visible, if it is at the start of a slide, audio will play at the start of that slide.
If you want an audio clip to play only when a button is clicked, you need to use an action 'Play audio', or make an audio object visible.
Audio Objects: Control them! - Captivate blog
Beware: if you do this with a simple action triggered by the button, the playhead will be released if that button has a pausing point.

Best way to break up audio files for Captivate?

Hi guys, I have a dilemma here. I am getting ready to record the audio clilps for Captivate and I'm wondering how I should break up the audio. For example, the first slide has
First textbox with title "Introduction"
Second textbox with title "Learning Objectives"
Third textbox with "In this lesson you will learn: a) how to do something b) how to define something"
Fourth textbox with "It will take you 5 minutes to complete this lesson"
So, how does Captivate play the audio? Do I record only one audio file for all the text on screen and add the audio to the slide? Or, do I record smaller chunks (for each textbox) and add the audio file to each of the textbox? In which order will Captivate play the audio? I'm assuming if all the textboxes have separate pieces of audio, Captivate would play those at the same time.
Thanks

Hi. My recommendation would be to create one audio file for the slide, then use the timeline if necessary to time the text captions (and other objects) to appear/disappear to match the slide audio. If you record audio for each text caption, the audio will begin to play as soon as the text caption becomes visable on the slide. If you have more than one text caption appearing at the same time, both will play their audio at the same time.
Hope this helps.
Mister C.

Captivate crashes importing or editing an audio file

Hi,
I have created software simulation demos with text to speech voice in Captivate 5.5 on Windows 7 . Recently,for one of the projects, I replaced the TTS voice by importing audio files in mp3 format successfully. Whie repeating the same efforts in another project, Captivate crashed. This behaviour is true across all new and existing projects while importing, or editing audio. Captivate freezes under the following circumstances:
1.
Open an existing/new project.
Import audio to slide - mp3. The file is successfully imported.
The Captivate hangs soon after the import.
2.
Open an existing/new project.
Import audio to slide - mp3.The file is successfully imported.
Save the file, and continue to work with the application.
Click on Edit Audio option in the Properties . The Captivate hangs.
Note: Clicking on Remove Audio option in the Properties executes without any problem.
3.
Open an existing project.
Select audio for a slide, and click Edit Audio
The Captivate hangs.
Has anyone encountered similar problems? Please help.
Regards,
Nalini

Thanks Rodward for your response. I found the solution by digging through the forum archive. I simply renamed my preferences directory in C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\Adobe\Adobe Captivate 5.5 folder. That fixed the issue.
Refer to the discussion http://forums.adobe.com/thread/759455

Can no longer preview background audio accurately, efficiently in Captivate 7

I'm currently using Captivate 7.0.1.237 on a Mac running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1.
As far as I know, Captivate has never allowed for Background audio previews to work anywhere but in (Preview > Project) and (Preview > web [or] HTML5). Those aren't ideal, but I used to have no problem fast-forwarding the preview to see what adjustments needed to be made to sync background audio voiceovers to slide content. (FYI - I can't record to each slide because I'm combining recordings with static slides. Tried, failed.)
Since upgrading to Yosemite, I have been unable to scrub (rewind/fast forward) in any of the preview modes without losing the synchronization of the voiceover audio I have in the background. Previewing in web browsers doesn't even work at all any more. {Error: This webpage is not available.} The video will rewind/fast forward, but the audio doesn't recognize the timestamp.
So, this means that now the only method I have for timing audio to video is previewing the entire project (Preview > Project). I am working on developing a set of 15 different videos (eventually MP4 output, so no interactions), each of which is between 3-8 minutes in length. Each project is between 25-60 slides. Say I create content on the last slide (which might be 5-10 objects per slide,) I have to preview the entire 8-minute video without pausing, rewinding, or fast-forwarding - every. single. time. I add. or change. some content.
This problem has led to me working 10+ hours in a day attempting to sync audio to animations for just one project. This is totally unacceptable.
PLEASE HELP!!! I've searched high and low through the documentation, FAQs, and message boards and I'm coming up empty.

Thanks for considering the problem! Unfortunately, as I stated above, the voiceover needs to be a background audio file that plays throughout the project. It's not possible to record audio-per-slide because of the structure of the video - and because I do a lot of editing of the audio files for 8-minute videos.
FYI - I was able to have a chat conversation with a support tech. Here is the transcript of that chat:
Anvinder: We have not tested the workflow of captivate 7 with yosemite so far.
Anvinder: You might find some inconsistencies.
AMANDA: So, is there no solution to this error?
AMANDA: Do I need to publish the entire project every single time I make a small change?
AMANDA: Has Captivate 8 shown this error in Yosemite?
Anvinder: In order to make the changes evident in the output you need to publish the whole output.
Anvinder: Amanda, the best practice is to publish the whole project.We are in testing phase for the same. You can download the trial version of captivate 8 and work on it on yosemite.
If you have a suggestion for a better workflow for creating tutorial videos (ultimately published to YouTube) that need to include the following, please share!
a voiceover
heavily animated explanations of concepts
live screen capture of business processes in software
Thanks!

How do I stop breaks or stutters in the audio file from occurring while editing?

I am using Captivate 8 but I saw this same problem in Cap7. My narrator recorded the audio while recording the video. He did not record to each slide independently, but instead allowed the software to break the narration at mouse clicks. As the editor, I am cleaning up the audio/video and every time I try to edit the audio it causes a stutter (a small silent section) at some other point in the audio file.
For Example: The mouse click occurred in the middle of a word, I re-position this frame break, a small gap is created in the middle of a word someplace else in the audio.
Any editing, even something as simple as changing the volume of the project through the Audio>Edit>Project option, can cause one or more of these brief silences somewhere in the audio. I have tried inserting silence before re-positioning a frame break, but that doesn't solve the problem. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This is taking 10 times longer than it should to do some simple editing.
Thank you!!

In other blogs some mentioned a little tool that stops the video when u go to other pages but it doesn't on Android as the mentioned here

Slide Action on Exit Cancelled by Length of Audio File

Captivate 8.0
Responsive Project
Status: Solution to problem works but makes no sense
Problem: Slide actions on exit designated in the Properties Inspector do not function. Although the "jump to slide" action was selected, the transition at the end of the slide moves to the next slide. I encountered this problem as I was developing a series of slides that would supplement a single beginning slide. Using click boxes I wanted the learner to be able to click on an item, go to a slide with more detail, then return to the original list on the starting slide. I set the supplemental slides up in the Property Inspector--Actions to "Jump to slide" and selected the beginning slide number. When I ran the project, the click boxes moved to the correct slides but the supplemental slides did not return to the beginning slide. They only transitioned to the next slide.
Solution: This makes no sense to me and is the source of my question. I'm using text-to-speech as a temporary method of making a rough cut at timing while I am waiting on narration files. The audio files created by text-to-speech usually run to the end of the slide and are exactly the same length as the slide. Grabbing at straws to fix the problem, I added 0.2 secs to the slide length so the slide timing was slightly more than the audio file. Voila! The selected action (jump to slide X) functions as expected. I made the same change on the balance of seven slides and the entire routine works as designed. I have not tested slides using imported narration or narration recorded within Captivate to see if the same problem presents.
Why would this be? Why would the length of an audio file prevent an exit action from functioning?

Lilybiri answered this on another question discussion
"Slide on exit action conflicts with button action in Captivate 5.5"

How do I add a pause to the beginning of TTS audio file ?

Hello,
I am using Captivate 6, and I am having adding a pause to the beginning of my TTS audio file. I would like to like up the text with the video. I've attached a video to show you the problem. Thank you!

Sorry but your video does not seem to play.
I was going to suggest, that what you want to do is actually very easy. If you have already created the TTS audio file and have it on the slide, just drag the audio file to the right on the timeline for a second or two. That will delay the start of the audio just the same way it does for any other object you want to appear at a given point.

Audio File Degradation in Captivate

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