May 27, 2022
Captivate & Video Creation
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May 27, 2022
Captivate & Video Creation
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I’ve used Captivate for about a decade. Like most instructional designers, I use Captivate primarily for interactive modules. More specifically, I generally produce courses focused on software training. My content strives to represent simulated software fluidly and accurately, and Captivate does a great job of handling the interactivity, variables, and advanced actions I need to create good products.

I’ve also used Captivate to record videos. For about two years, I exclusively used Captivate to produce short videos for software demos. Captivate allows you to record a video using the Video Demo mode, or create any other type of content and publish it as an MP4.

Captivate performs best with static content. While it can record scrolling in software simulations, this scrolling isn’t interactive in output. It offers graphic effects like easing/fading in, but these can end up choppy. Moving content tends to exhibit inaccurate color reproduction, and editing options are unintuitive and limited. When publishing videos that include embedded videos, what you see on the timeline isn’t always what you get in output.

Instead, I use a separate application for creating videos. I get to create robust, compelling videos and then embed them in Captivate modules. This certainly isn’t needed for all users and all projects – Captivate does a good job at doing a wide variety of things, but standalone video production isn’t its best feature. If you have limited use for video, no desire for advanced graphics/effects, and are fine with minimal editing, or use interactive features in conjunction with video, Captivate will do just fine and will save you from spending money and learning another program.

Do you have experience with videos in Captivate? How do you find it works for you?

5 Comments
2022-06-24 06:06:04
2022-06-24 06:06:04

I agree with you with regards to the video capabilities of Captivate and like you I create my videos elsewhere and embed them in a Captivate project which is designed as an interactive course/player. I have used it for software simulations but like you the scrolling feature was disappointing.

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2022-06-16 00:20:15
2022-06-16 00:20:15

I’d love to see how much Captivate has changed over a decade of use!

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kelly.rivera.6
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2022-06-24 10:02:56
2022-06-24 10:02:56
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kelly.rivera.6
's comment

Really? I have used Captivate since version 1 (still under MacroMedia) and have been intensively busy with the tool since version 4 (2008). It did grow from a tool with focus on the creation of software simulations to a real Swiss knife. The list of new features added since 2008 is too long to enter here. Big changes were made with version 5 where the common Adobe UI was applied, with version 6 where Themes were introduced with their (still underrated) big time saving power for design consistency and Shapes were introduced (still CP’s most flexible object). Expanding the power of Advanced Actions to the wonderful Shared actions and availability of more system variables, better integration of JavaScript. Later on a new UI change happened with version 8, but I am still not happy with that change personally.  Interactive videos, 360° slides, responsive projects (Breakpoint views and Fluid Boxes) were made possible, and version 11.5 added a lot as well (see my blog on the Featured Blogs page).

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2022-06-08 19:58:21
2022-06-08 19:58:21

In Mexico we use to say “Zapatero a tu zapato”, wich means, do what you can do best and let the others take charge on their job. I try to say use the software that better cover your needs, Captivate is not a fully capable software for video, there are tools like Animate, After Effects, Premiere and many others that will work better for create videos.

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2022-05-30 09:12:44
2022-05-30 09:12:44

You are really talking about software simulations and its limiting features. I prefer largely interactive courses, which is the main goal for Captivate and created a lot of software sims for my students in college, but that was in the SWF-era. You are correct that interactivity which implies scrolling is impossible, so I learned to avoid scrolling as much as possible which is perfectly possible in most use cases. Of course you need to warn the learner about that, but that is also the case of each workflow which allows multiple ways, although some of them can be simulated in Captivate.

As for the quality of the FMR slides: one of the first Preferences I will always edit after install is to increase the bitrate from 16 to 32 bit. That change is valid both for Video Demo and FMR slides. For the last an extra problem is due to the fact that the former FLV output now has to be converted to MP4 when publishing and that can result in problems. To avoid that conversion I will never include FMR slides but always replace them by Video Demo slides during the capturing process.

Including embedded videos in an interactive course is possible, and you can use the more recent possibility for interactive video included with CP. However if you want to publish the course to a passive video it is a bit tricky to include videos into the course because their settings need to be completely compatible with the cptx settings.

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