Elements recorded are blurry

[CaptivateVesco]

I currently use Captivate 4 and am having problems with some elements that I record (see the image below). In Edit View everything looks fine, but when I preview or publish the project, you see that some of the dotted box is missing. Why is that?

I have been able to get it to look better when I change the quality settings of the particular slide to a lower quality, but it is a hazzle going through all slides in a recording and change the settings for some slides and the published project will then have an uneven look as some slides have a lower resolution.

Does anyone know what the reason is and if there is something to be done?

[Lilybiri]

Hello,

What is the resolution of your CP-project? Did you capture in Automatic mode or in Full Motion? And what are the Quality settings initially (8-bit, Optimized, JPEG or 24-bit), and the one you changed to? Can you tell something about the Preferences you use for SWF Size and Quality? I do see that the recorded app is Powerpoint 2007.

Lilybiri 

[CaptivateVesco]

Hi Lilybiri,

I recorded in a custom format 900x566, but have also tried in 800x600 and others - result is the same. I record in automatic mode and high 24 bit, which I think is the only quality to make video recordings in? Then I change the specific slide to quality low or optimized and the problem goes away.

So it is a little strange that the problem is gone in smaller resolution. I think however, it might be, that Captivate has a problem because Powerpoint slides has a dotted box and then when you want to enter text it creates a new dotted text box on top of the previous dotted box. But anyway, it does not look good in Captivate projects.

Perhaps it will help changing the swf settings? My current settings are the default ones I think, I have included a screenshot. If you have a solution I am very grateful and impressed

[Lilybiri]

Hello,

Do suspect it is linked with a conflict with the resolution used by Powerpoint (but do not know the exact settings in PPT), that is why I asked about your resolution settings. Do not know why you started capturing at 24-bit, which is indeed the highest possible quality for capturing the backgrounds (are BMP) but is mostly overkill except when using a lot of high-quality graphical assets. I created quite a lot of software training simulations/assessment in CPand never capture at 24-bit. You did never try to capture at Low resolution or Optimized?

In automatic mode, CP switch to Full Motion Recording when necessary, normally for Drag-and-Drop and Mouse wheel actions. For FMR-settings (you'll find them also in the Preferences, item Recording)  I always change to 32-bit (default = 16-bit) because that makes the FMR having pretty much looking the same quality as the static slides (in Low 8-bit). But do you have FMR, and more specifically for the issue you talk about?

As for the settings on your screenshot: you can try to deactivate every compression (filesize will increase with quality). Somewhere on this forum I also have seen that changing to AS3 instead of AS2 could improve the quality, but never tried this out. Of course you'll have to be sure then not to use any widget or imported Flash-animation that is using AS2.

If you could tell exactly what you did capture in PPT2007, could try some settings out over here.

Lilybiri

[CaptivateVesco]

Hi again,

For the automatic recording I cannot see any options for changing the quality from 24-bit, only after the recording is done, I can change the quality of the slides.

I have tried some of the other suggestions you mention. It is not a FMR I have done, but I did one just to test, and in full motion there are no problems, everything looks fine there.

But in the automatic recording part of the dotted box is missing, almost no matter what I do. Sometimes when changing the quality of the slides are the recording, it makes it look better, other times it does not help either.

Changing publishing settings like AS3 or compression does not help either.

All I did in Powerpoint was open it and try typing a text box on the standard slide that appears when creating a new project. So I was just trying it out because I have a client that had the problem and asked me.

If you could try doing a simple Powerpoint recording and record typing a title or text box I would be very grateful to hear if you get the same result. Thank you very much in advance for your kind help. 

[Lilybiri]

Hello

Have been away for a couple of hours, sorry to keep you waiting. As I suspect something linked to the resolution (lines are not exactly on pixels) tried different resolutions.

Just tried several settings to capture PPT, typing a text in a Text box.

Did not have your issue when capturing 800x600 at High 24-bit: dotted lines were clear, not blurry. Same when changing to 8-bit (you can select all slides at once and apply properties to all of them). But when I changed to Optimized or JPEG there were some dots (-----) replaced by points (....). However when filling in a second Text box, there were some small 'ghost' lines remaining visible from the first Text box, which is also annoying.

When I did the same capture in a resolution of 640x480 all was perfect, in 24-bit, 8-bit, Optimized and JPEG. But of course you have problems with seeing all of the ribbon in this small resolution that seems to be ideal for capturing PPT. Tried 800x480 and that seemed to work fine too.

Testing in 1024x768: here I got the blurry lines you showed on your posting. And it remained so in all quality settings.

Even tried in 1280x960 (exactly double of 640x480) but it got worse.

Perhaps positioning of the Text boxes could help, but the problem with PPT is that you cannot position on pixels and I think this be too cumbersome.

Was doing this test on a 1280x1024 screen, 32-bit color.

Lilybiri

[Captiv8r]

Hi folks

Just a shot from the hip here, but could it possibly be as simple as the slide having a Text Entry field on it that is covering part of the background image?

If you click where you see the image is missing, do you see sizing handles? Are you able to drag it around? If so, what's happening is that you have a Text Entry Box in that area and it's covering part of the background.

Apologies for the bandwidth if this isn't what is happening... Rick

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[Lilybiri]

Hi Rick,

Recorded a demonstration, no TEB's. There is a Typing object, replaced it by a Text Animation but it is not covering up anything of the borders of the PPT-Textbox. In my last recording I had one TEB, but it is really a long way from the disappearing line pieces. Here is an example with both 'ghost lines' and disappearing parts of lines:

[CaptivateVesco]

Hi again Lily (and Captiva8r),

Your test with different resolution worked almost fine here as well. I tried in 800x480px and it worked fine except for one slide which had to be changed to Optimized from 24-bit.

It is very strange what the reason is though. We have tried changing publish settings etc. without result. Too me it seems to be a problem with the Captivate recorder, don't you agree? Or perhaps with the accelerator as sometimes the first slides look fine and then typically slide 3 and onwards you start getting problems. Or a completely wild guess could also be that it is a hardware issue? Which I do not think though.

Perhaps we need to test it with Adobe themselves?

Thanks for all your efforts so far. I teach Captivate to customers here and I have never come across such problems, but then again I do not do much screen capture - more custom courses. My customer who found the problem has some other capturing issues as well... hopefully some of it gets solved in version 5..