Adobe Captivate 4: AVI Anyone?

by Kevin A. Siegel

 

The new Captivate 4 now allows you to publish your Captivate projects as an AVI file.

 

I bet you're wondering what the AVI format is. Great question. AVI is an acronym for Audio Video Interleave, a Microsoft innovation introduced way back in 1992.

 

AVIs have limitations when it comes to resolution and FPS (frames per second) that were overcome with the SWF format. However, there are a large number of players that support the AVI format, and therefore a huge user base. For that reason, plenty of developers output content in the AVI format.

 

Before you abandon the SWF format, keep in mind that while AVIs can contain sound and animation (or video), they cannot contain interactivity. For that reason, if you elect to publish your projects as AVIs, you will have to ensure your lesson is a demonstration instead of a simulation (AVIs lose all of those things that make a simulation tick such as click boxes, buttons, and text entry boxes.

 

Publishing your projects as AVIs is a simple process:

1. Choose File > Publish
   
   
   The Publish dialog box will appear.
   
   
2. Select Media
   
   
3. Select Video (*.avi) from the Media Options drop-down menu
   
   

You will then need to select an appropriate Video Format from the drop-down menu. There are several encoders to choose from. If you would like to learn about encoders (an encoder is a something that converts analog video to digital video), click here.

 

As for the Audio format, Captivate uses PCM (pulse code modulation) where the analog files are converted to binary (digital) files. 

 

After settling on the options mentioned above, all that's left to do is click the Publish button and you're all set.

 

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Need to learn Adobe Captivate 3? Click here.

 

Need to learn Adobe Captivate 4? Click here.

Comments

[Jeanette]

I am having problems publishing to AVI. It stops on the third slide and conversion doesn't progress. Anyone else having this problem?

[bradpitt]

I choose the folder, and the title of the output file. When I hit publish, a preview comes up showing only the first slide. And nothing gets published. There is no output file anywhere.

[greg]

I am also having a problem publishing to AVI. It stops on the second slide and actually causes Captivate 4 to close (Not Responding!). Ugh.

[Patricia Blount]

I'm also having problems. Just get "Error occured" message. No troubleshooting tips or information whatsoever.

I'm assuming I've got a RAM issue; trying to close things down now.