# Troubleshooting

The following troubleshooting tips provide answers for some common questions and scenarios.

What is the typical size of Captivate movies?

Captivate was built with low bandwidth in mind. A typical movie with sound (some narration) and a modest screen size of 512 x 384 streams at approximately 2-3k per second. This movie can be viewed using a 56 Kilobytes per second dial-up modem (or less) without waiting more than a few seconds for the movie to start. Additionally, there are no pauses during playback.

Example movie:

- File Size: 777K

- Length: 6 minutes 12 seconds

- Audio: 286k

- Video: 491k

- Screen size: 608x460

Note: File size is dependent on several factors. Larger files contain elements such as photos, images, soundtracks, high screen sizes, rapid screen transitions, and higher quality video and audio settings.

Why do the colors on some slides display incorrectly?

Captivate optimizes file size by using the same color palette for as many as ten successive slides. This can cause a problem if the color scheme changes drastically between slides. (For example, if you have a blue slide followed by a gray slide, Captivate colors the gray slide with the blue palette). You can prevent this by following this procedure:

#### To change the color palette:

1. Open a Captivatemovie in Storyboard view or Edit view.

2. From the Options menu, select Advanced > Use One Color Palette.

A check mark appears when the option is selected.

Why does my text not display properly when I export and view my movie in a browser?

You are probably viewing the SWF file instead of the HTM file that corresponds to the SWF movie. If you are adding your movie to a web page, do not link directly to the SWF file. If you link directly to the SWF file, the browser does not know the size at which it should display the SWF so it simply shows the SWF file at the same size as the browser window. This can result in distortions, especially text distortion that causes text to become unreadable.

To display the SWF in a browser properly, use the HTM file that Captivate generates with the SWF file. The HTML file contains code that tells the browser the correct size for the movie. To easily copy and paste the code, open a Captivate movie, click the View menu, select HTML Code, copy the code shown, and paste it into the appropriate HTML file.

Can I change the slide timing for an individual slide?

#### To set individual slide timing:

1. Open a Captivate movie in Storyboard view or Edit view and select the desired slide.

2. From the Slide menu, select Timing.

The Slide Timing dialog box appears.

3. Select the desired slide timing.

4. Click OK.

If you change the slide timing using the Movie Preferences dialog box, the timing changes for all slides.

Why is my application distorted when I try to resize it within the capture rectangle?

This problem occurs with certain combinations of Windows and video cards. The problem can be solved by setting the hardware acceleration on your computer to "None." You can change this setting in the following location: Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Troubleshooting.

How can I reduce the size of my movie?

There are a number of ways to improve the file size of movies.

- One important factor is "Kilobytes per second." Check the Bandwidth Analysis to find this factor. Don't despair if your movie is large. It is possible for a large movie to stream well over the Internet. For example, a 400K file might seem large, but if it plays for 5 minutes, it streams easily over a 28.8K modem. The first slide in a movie always has a longer kilobytes per second ratio because it is the first slide to load and additional movie information must load with it.

- Consider your color settings and the images included in your movie. Two quick tips to reduce file size are to avoid color gradients and photo images. For more information about optimizing colors, see Correcting color display in slides.

- Read Recording tips and tricks for more helpful hints about reducing the size of your movie.

What is the maximum number of slides in a movie?

Technically there is no maximum number of slides in a Captivate movie. The amount of slides depends on the amount of RAM you are using. Some movies created on a 64MB machine have had 300+ slides. There is also no limit on MP3 size for audio in slides.

However, there is a restriction related to Flash. Captivate exports files into Macromedia Flash Format (SWF) and is, therefore, subject to its limitations. The most important limitation is that movies in SWF format cannot be larger than 16,000 frames, or about 13 minutes.

Note: This means frames per second, not individual Captivate movie slides!

By default, movies are set to twenty frames per second. So, a caption that appears for one second requires twenty frames. Dividing the number of frames in a movie by twenty, gives you the number of seconds the movie plays.

There is an easy way to see how many frames are in a Captivate movie.

Why is my full motion recording "choppy" and how can I make it smoother?

You can create a smoother full motion movie, particularly better mouse movement, by disabling hardware acceleration. When hardware acceleration is on, it can use a great deal of system resources and result in "choppy" full motion recording. Turning hardware acceleration off results in better full motion recording quality.

To easily disable hardware acceleration when recording a full motion movie, select the "Record at higher capture rate for smoother movie" on the Recording Options dialog box. If you select this option, your computer screen will briefly flicker when you begin and end full motion recording. This screen flicker does not harm your computer and does not appear in the final movie.

Why does the font on my transparent caption look jagged?

This problem occurs if transparent captions are created and the system setting for font smoothing (anti-aliasing) is enabled. To fix the font appearance, turn off the font smoothing option.

#### For Windows XP users:

1. From the Start menu (lower-left corner of the computer desktop), select Settings > Control Panel.

2. Double-click on Display.

3. Select the Appearance tab.

4. Click Effects.

5. If the option Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts is selected (a check mark appears to the left of the option), click on the check mark to clear it and disable the setting.

#### For Windows 2000 and earlier versions of Windows:

1. From the Start menu (lower-left corner of the computer desktop), select Settings > Control Panel.

2. Double-click on Display.

3. Select the Effects tab.

4. If the option Smooth edges of screen fonts is selected (a check mark appears to the left of the option), click on the check mark to clear it and disable the setting.