Lag after pre-loader hits 60% and before movie starts playing.

Question

Hi all,
I’m hoping somebody can shed some light on an issue
that I’m experiencing with a Captivate project I’m
working on. I’ll try to explain this in detail so you
understand the background and scope of this project. These are
being exported as HTML/SWF and being viewed within IE6.
I’ve been tasked with taking a new employee training
course that is currently handled by a live person standing in front
of a room of people and showing them an 18 minute VHS tape and also
covering information that is presented on a PowerPoint file, and
making it into a Captivate movie.
I was able to get the original digital video cut into 4
chunks and converted to SWF by media group that produced the tape.
The four SWF files are 320x240 and range from 13 to 22 megs.
Because of the size of the files and the amount of content, I
created 8 ‘modules’ that make up the larger project.
The last slide of the first module launches the 2nd module, etc.
until the user has seen all of the modules which on their side
(other than a brief pre-loader popping up at times) is mostly
transparent and they think they are just watching a 30 minute
training course.
Basically, what I’ve done is laid out the modules so
that the whole course alternates back and forth between text slides
with voice-overs and the movie clips. The movie clip SWF’s
have been embedded into every other module, so:
Module 1: Intro to the course (text & voice-overs)
Module 2: Video clip 1
Module 3: Discussion about stuff (text & voice-overs)
Module 4: Video clip 2
Module 5: Discussion about stuff (text & voice-overs)
Module 6: Video clip 3
Module 7: Discussion about stuff (text & voice-overs)
Module 8: Video clip 4 and wrap-up
Now here is the problem:
We have 20+ offices and I am located at the main office where
the web servers are located. If I run through this, everything
works great. I tested this in one of our off-site locations today
where they have a semi-fast connection, but still going across a
WAN.
Module 1 loads fine. Hits 60%, plays, user can click Next,
Next, Next to proceed through the training. At the end of Module 1,
we prompt them with some text to let them know there may be a brief
delay before they see the upcoming video clip. Click Next, loads
Module2.swf which has the videoclip1.swf embedded in it (21 megs).
Takes a little while to load which is expected. Hits 60%.
Preloader goes away and then just white screen for at least 10
seconds (sometimes 20-30 seconds, depending on the size of the
embedded movie clip) before the movie actually starts playing.
This is not acceptable as the user will think that something is
broken. If the movie is not completely loaded, then it
shouldn’t have hit 60% and the preloader graphic disappear,
right?
I think that the problem revolves around the movie clip not
being able to play until it is fully loaded, although the Module
has loaded the 60% that it needs to begin playing. The only way
around this that I see is re-arrange my slides so that the video
clip is not the first slide to play in any given module.
We tried this on at least 7 computers, all of which were just
rolled out new last fall, so the machines are definitely beefy
enough to handle this.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Mike

Answer 1

quote:
Originally posted by:
CatBandit
I just read your title, Mike (I don't have time for the whole
article - sorry), but felt it might help to point out that 60% is
40% less than 100%.
Nope, I am not being a wise guy, but I know it's possible to
have so much "weight" in the content of the last 40% that
additional delay might be required while a (early) required element
or object completes down-streaming. Just a thought...
Hi Larry,
Good to see you back on the forums and thanks for the reply.
What you posted further proves my point. From what I've been taught
about Captivate, it loads to 60% and begins to play while the
remaining 40% loads. Not loads to 60% and then some portion of the
remaining 40% may or may not have to load before it starts. If
that's the case, why not just load 100% before it starts and then
have no problems?
It shouldn't matter how large the file is, right? The only
difference is that larger files would take longer to reach the 60%
mark. 60% is 60% is 60%. Compare a feather to a car. 60% of the
weight of each item is still 60%, it doesn't matter how much it
weighs.
60% of a cubic foot of rock is the same percentage
as 60% of a cubic foot of marshmallows.
Anyway, I think the solution here is to fudge the problem by
putting a few 'less weighty' slides in front of the slide with the
embedded video so that the user has something to look at other than
a blank screen. I was just hoping somebody else might have
experience this and had a magic button I could press to make it all
better.
I could handle this if the preloader continued running so the
user had some clue that it was still working, but when the
preloader hits 60% and disappears and then nothing happens for
another 10-20 seconds, that's a problem.