Adobe programs dont work with Captivate to capture/record

[BennyRick]

Hi there.

I've had problems with Captivate capturing screen recording from Adobe Premier cs5, where it would not show any of the video which was being edited.  I figured this was just the video issue and worked around it by just not showing the video preview for the small thing i was demonstrating, it wasnt a big deal if it was just isolated to this.

Next I was using Adobe Photoshop and setting up a little demo on how to fill objects.  Captivate did not pick up the cursor, it shows a ugly black box.

I also want it to pick up the full motion of my mouse cursor in photoshop, but it doesnt come close, so as im narrating how to do something, my actual mouse is not showing at the same time as im saying it which is essential when you are trying to show a way to FILL a certain area of a shape.

I had plans to do many things with captivate, now it seems i am going to have to switch back and forth with Camtasia, convert to AVI the parts that Captivate does not handle, and then import them into Captivate to make my demonstrations look seemless???

I have a lot planned for Adove CS5 Flash, is this also going to give me the same problem?

I have already searched for a solution tot his, and everyone has said that captivate does not capture things where there is overlayed content etc etc...

This strikes me slightly insane when Camtasia does it so well, and Im using an Adobe program to provide training on Adobe programs...

If anyone knows any delevopers for captivate on here, can they PLEASE look at this right now as im slapping myself wondering why this is the case and how im going to plan to do all the simulations half with camtasia and half with captivate on Adobe products we use at my work.....

Oh see the below link around slide 42 to get an example of what im saying here..

http://www.blcstudents.com.au/tutorials/col-fill/colour-fill.htm

or you can check out

http://www.blcstudents.com.au/tutorials/wp/?page_id=35 its at the bottom of the page.

Anyway im worried about what to be doing at this point, I got captivate for adobe products, not for other products and programs out there.

Cheers for any help,

Ben.

[RodWard]

Just out of curiosity, are you able to modify the mouse cursor AFTER doing the captures once you're back in Captivate editing them?

For example, are you able to select the mouse for the slides where it added this wierd square cursor, then choose the normal arrow cursor from the Properties tabl > Options accordion?

Or are you able to delete the mouse from these same slides, and add it back again, and then select the cursor you want?

Have you found that there is nothing you can do to change this particular cursor on these slides?

[BennyRick]

Hi Rod.

Thanks for your reply.

I checked that Properties option, yes it has the mouse cursors used by adobe, but they are all with the black box around them. Its like when you have a transparent gif, and in any other program than ones that read it, the transparency comes out either white or black.  Hence why I get that black square around the icon.

I would need to get the cursor file from within adobe photoshop... which I will look for now...

I will post cursor location if I find it..

Cheers Rod,

Ben.

[RodWard]

It's really wierd that it allowed you to capture most of the interface without issue but then when you went to that one particular area it gave you this issue.

I hope that the Adobe team are watching this thread.  Adobe products should be able to capture and work with other Adobe products.  Getting all the CS5 apps into the same interface style was a major reason for the Cp5 rewrite effort.

[BennyRick]

Tonight I will do a quick run through of the MAIN Adobe programs recording with the Full video setting from Captivate, then I will do the same with camtasia so it can be seen that I've done the same and the quality difference.

Considering Camtasia is a lesser ranked e-learning software item, it should not be outperforming Captivate in the most usefull part.  Well the core part as I see it is to do simulations etc etc with Captivate, so I consider it a core part.

Anyway willl post the link and see what the Adobe products it does and does not capture properly.

Will test Dreamweaver, photoshop, Flash, premier.

Cheers Rod.

[BennyRick]

I have finished the sample test and here it is.

Check out my page and the following links.

http://www.blcstudents.com.au/tutorials/wp/?page_id=52#comment-51

The results speak for themselves, and Captivate looks like a 6.5 out 10 while Camtasia looks like a 9.

And that is bad as I have made a big statement to my boss that Captivate not Camtasia was the way to go..

Well if im just doing part sim part ppt type things Captivate is fine. But what I want is to teach and show adobe products, and this is not able to be done well by captivate, if at all. I would have to do the video in camtasia and then the assessment etc in captivate, and then tie it up back into captivate at the end... so its nuts in my opinion.

Pull your socks up ADOBE and get this sorted out, or dont charge so much for Adobe Captivate when it does half the job!!.

[RodWard]

I think you may be comparing apples with oranges here.

I do agree that Captivate lags behind Camtasia when it comes to full motion video screencapture and certain other aspects such as zooming and panning. But, to give Cp it's due, in almost every other department Captivate eats Camtasia alive.

You'll be interested to know that Adobe is currently looking very hard at the gap between Captivate and Camtasia in these areas.  We're all hoping for significant narrowing of the gap when Cp6 arrives.

[BennyRick]

Yes I do agree Rod.

I'm specifically wanting to do e-learning, rather than just capture and demonstrate, so I could not do that with camtasia.

My problem is that I cant do completly that with Captivate, as the stuff I want to demonstrate does not work, puts me in a bad position.

I was perhaps a little over excited in the last email however, end of the day was wearing on me.

Specifically I want my actual projects to incorporate these things I've been researching for a while and as a former primary school teacher, know about, Blooms Taxonomy for one, as resources always leave this kind of stuff out. 

Anyway, Hope the next captivate gets these things done.  As it is I have to do half camtasia, half captivate.. But that is computers generally, no one product ever works, and does it all, ive always had this in every area, from tech support, network support, diagnostics, desktop publishing, photo editing....

[RodWard]

You're quite correct that Captivate alone will be unlikely to fill all the requirements you will have to create elearning.  That's one reason why we have the e-Learning Suite.  I use Captivate as the core tool, but create animations and widgets in Flash, manipulate or enhance sound files in Soundbooth, do graphics in Photoshop, etc, etc.

I rarely do full motion capture for more than a few seconds, and fortunately haven't encountered the issues you did when trying to capture Adobe apps.  I've created tutorials on Captivate, captured by another instance of Captivate without issue, as well as tutorials on Flash with the same good results.  So I wasn't aware that Photoshop would throw this curve ball.  I notice that even Deke McClelland, the Adobe Photoshop guru, uses Camtasia when creating his tutorials.  So maybe he's found the same issue.

In any case, try to help your boss see that one tool was never going to be enough.  Thankfully, Camtasia isn't anywhere near as expensive as Captivate or the ELS, so maybe he won't balk at the price.

[BennyRick]

Cheers Rod.

You have put my mind at rest somewhat actually, putting things into perspective.