Audio recording--files missing, duplicated, long inserted silence, and more

Question

When we use Captivate 2 to record audio files we find that
when we go into the "edit timing" option, there are extra periods
of time--long blank silences--inserted into the project. We have
also noticed that some clips can get duplicated. We have also had
issues with the files not saving or, saving, but when we re-open
the .cp file there are random slides missing their audio files.
Most of our files are only 4-5 minutes long, but I have been
working on a 25 minute presentation and it has given me no end of
problems when i try to save or publish it. captivate stops
responding and i lose all my audio. any suggestions?

Answer 1

How large is your Captivate file?
I've noticed that on closing Captivate with a 100MB file
there is a significant delay in which Captivate seems to hang. If
you watch the target directory, the .cp file will "disappear" and
then reappear after some time, perhaps a minute or more. I'm
guessing that on my older laptop, Captivate is chugging along
behind the scenes, manipulating temp files or the like.
To cope, I'm using a brute force approach in which I have two
versions of each audio file: a tiny placeholder and the actual
audio file. The files are named the same but stored in folders
named Tiny (10 sec of silence) and Big (the actual audio file). I
use a third folder, named Working, to import audio. From
Captivate's point of view all audio paths point to the Working
folder.
When I'm editing slide 15, I copy the tiny files for slides
1-14 into the working folder, overwriting the existing files. Then
I update the audio for slides 1-14, using the library's update
tool. As a result, the project size slims back down and saving the
project no longer take so long. At the end, I copy the full files
into the working folder, update, and publish.
As you might imagine audio file naming conventions are
important . You need to be able to see at a glance which audio goes
with which slides. If I use Captivate to record audio, I export the
file so I can store it in Big and then rename a copy of a tiny file
to match it.
The down side is that the timing on closed captions seems to
be affected by substituting the tiny file for the full slide audio.
So, I wait to set up the timing for closed captions until the end
when I publish using the full files.
Even as I write this I wince. I certainly hope someone else
will suggest a more elegant way. My approach is not at all pretty
I've found it less frustrating than working with a sluggish
Captivate and putting up with the hangs I experienced prior to
using tiny files.
Doc