# Comparing full motion slides and standard movie slides

Captivate enables authors to capture screen shots in standard Print Screen format and using full motion recording (also known as "drag-and-drop recording"). The full motion recording option captures screen shots at a higher frame rate, resulting in a smoother, more realistic movie. So, if the full motion option creates a "better" quality movie, there is a question of when to use the standard recording method and when to use full motion recording.

Note: It is important to set the correct frame rate before creating slides. The default setting is 30 flash frames per second and is appropriate in most cases. You may need to change the rate if the location that will be hosting the SWF file requires a specific frame rate. Change the frame rate using the Movie preferences dialog box.

To distinguish between the two options it is appropriate to think of full motion recording as an enhancement to, not a substitute for, a standard movie. The full motion recorded movie is placed into one slide of a movie and plays like a "mini-movie" within the larger movie. Full motion movies are useful when you need to show an action that involves precise motion such as using a drawing/painting program, detailed dragging and dropping operations, or a 3-D program.

Following are two important distinctions between full motion slides and standard movie slides:

- Standard Captivate movie slides can be enhanced with captions, click boxes, images, audio, highlight boxes, buttons, and other features. Elements on the original recorded slides can be edited, such as mouse motion. A full motion movie slide appears exactly as it is captured and cannot be edited or contain other elements like captions.

- The size of your finished movie is important, whether you are uploading the file to the web via FTP, creating a SWF, or sending the file in an e-mail message. In most cases, a smaller file is always easier and faster to work with and manage. Although compression is applied, full motion slides are larger in size because they are captured at a higher frame rate. (You can take certain steps, such as changing the conversion color mode to 16 bit and lowering the video quality, to reduce the size of full motion slides.)

Note: For more information, see About full motion slides.