What’s the difference between Flash and Captivate?

Question: can you briefly explain the advantage/difference between Captivate and Flash. I can't seem to find any one place that discusses this.

Well, I'm back from leave and the walls still seem to be standing, so I thought I'd return by responding to E-Learning Curve Blog reader Marvin Pyle’s query about Flash and Captivate. [As an aside, I assume you’re not the same Marvin who guided my wife and I around the Mayan site of Copán Ruinas in Honduras?]

I can see where the confusion surrounding Flash arises, and I also understand why you'd find it a little difficult to find a site that discusses this. More on the latter, later.

There are a number of facets to any discussion about Flash, Captivate, and why the tools and technologies are important to e-learning. To do justice to the subject, I will address these aspects of the subject over the next few blog posts:

• Background and Context
• Flash Player
• Flash Application
• Flash Platform
• Captivate
• Flash and E-Learning

Background and Context
Adobe Flash (previously Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. Since its 1996 launch, it has become a very popular tool for adding animation and interactivity to the Web. Flash is the de facto standard tool used to:

• create Web-based animations & advertisements
• run various Web page components (i.e. menu items, drop-down lists)
• integrate streaming video into Web pages
• develop rich Internet applications
• deliver e-learning content over the Web

Flash can manipulate vector and raster graphics, and supports streaming audio and video media delivery. It is programmable via an interpreted scripting language called ActionScript (currently at v3). A range of software products can be used to create and to run Flash content. Examples include the Adobe Flash Player (which is available for most Web browsers, some mobile phones (though significantly not the Apple iPhone) as well as for other electronic devices.

Adobe Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is a near-ubiquitous software client used to view animations and movies, either in via Web browser or as a stand-alone player. Typically, the Flash Player runs ShockWave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) files that are created and compiled in the Flash authoring tool, in Adobe Flex, and by using a range of third party tools and applications. And herein lies the confusion I alluded to earlier: strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files: these terms have become mixed over time, and "Flash" can now mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files.

Flash Player supports for an interpreted scripting language called ActionScript, which is based on ECMAScript. Now in version 3, ActionScript has matured from a pretty loose script syntax to a language that supports object-oriented code.

While originally designed to display 2-dimensional vector animations, the Flash Player has become an environment for running rich internet applications (RIAs), and streaming video and audio. It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time. Flash is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into Web pages.

The Flash Player is available as a plugin for recent versions of browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer on a number of platforms.

Next time: The Flash Platform

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Using Audio Markers in Adobe Presenter

In yesterday's post, I began discussing some advanced audio editing and rapid e-learning synchronization features of Adobe's applications Presenter and Captivate.

Now read on…

This post will cover how to integrate your audio-with-metadata files into Adobe Presenter. In my next article I will discuss using markers to generate content for Captivate - the processes are different. While the process is quite straight-forward, it's easier to show you this process in a demo than describe it in a linear fashion using text and images (after all, this is an E-learning blog, folks!).

First some background: as you probably know, Presenter enables you to publish Microsoft PowerPoint-created content in a Web friendly format. The Presenter Audio Editor supports editing voice-over narration via its functionality in PowerPoint.

As well as using an external audio program, you can perform basic audio and animation editing tasks within your PowerPoint presentation, including:

• Viewing the presentation audio, including slide and animation markers
• Playing, recording, deleting, and editing audio, including adding silence
• Inserting commands to control playback
• Adjusting volume and processing options

Using audio markers
Adobe Presenter displays a visual representation of a presentation’s audio, along with markers that represent commands for controlling playback. Audio is edited incrementally, one slide at a time.

To view audio markers, open the PowerPoint presentation you want to edit. Click the Adobe Presenter menu or ribbon and click the Audio Edit button. The Audio Editor is displayed (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Audio Editor in Presenter(click to enlarge)

Using the Slide Navigation drop-down list, you must select a slide to edit its audio (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Slide Navigation drop-down list (click to enlarge)

The Audio Editor displays a visual representation of the audio file called a waveform. Markers along the top of the waveform represent commands you can use to control the timing of slide transitions, animations, and other events during playback of your content.

In Presenter, you can add four types of markers in the Audio Editor (see Table 1):

Table 1. Markers applied to the Audio Editor

Type	Name	Marker color	Description
Slide	Slide (#)	Gray header with solid red line	Designates slide transitions. Each slide marker is numbered.
Mouse-click animation	Click (#)	Blue	Designates when a mouse-click animation will be triggered. These markers are numbered within each slide boundary.
Automatic animation	Auto	Faded gray	Generated when using the Automatic setting in PowerPoint presentations.
Command	Wait for User or Goto…	Green	Enables playback control. There are two types: 1. Wait for User: When this location is reached, playback automatically stops. The viewer must click on Play to continue the presentation. 2. Goto: When this location is reached, playback automatically jumps to the designated slide.

Playing, recording, deleting, and editing audio

Use the playback controls in the Audio Editor to review the audio for the presentation. You can also record new audio, delete selected sections, and insert silence.

Adjusting volume and audio processing options

The Adjust Volume dialog box is used to adjust audio playback levels. Adjust Volume also enables you to undertake basic digital signal processing (DSP) options including normalization (finding the optimal audio volume) and signal boost to enhance quiet audio. The default settings should be fine if you’ve recorded your audio properly. I suggest that you experiment with these settings to understand how changes to these options affect the audio quality of your rendered presentation.

You Try:

To adjust audio volume and digital signal processing options:

1. Click the Tools menu in the Audio Editor and select Volume. The Adjust Volume dialog box is displayed.
2. Adjust the settings and click on OK.
3. Click the File menu and select Exit.When you exit the Audio Editor, Adobe Presenter prompts you to save your changes.
4. Click Yes to close the dialog box and return to PowerPoint.

Adding Audio with Marker to Adobe Presenter

Note: Even though this demo is about adding audio to a presentation, for copyright reasons there is no narration track associated with this file.

Next: Importing audio in to Captivate.

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Audio Narration in E-Learning Content: Using Audio Markers

One of the features of Adobe applications for rapid e-learning content development is their facility to import audio metadata (commonly known as markers) into the authoring environment. I received a query from a Krishna, a subscriber to the E-Learning Curve Blog who asked:

How do you insert markers and how do you synchronize with captivate slides?

So over the next few days I'm going to outline the process of using markers in audio files, and how these markers can be used to simplify the process of synchronizing audio narration with visual content in presentations created not only in Captivate, but also in Presenter too.

Now read on...

In this post, I am going to focus on using audio markers in Sony Sound Forge, a professional sound-editing program or non-linear editor (NLE). The Sound Forge audio editing suite is the most powerful in a range of audio editing programs owned by Sony and originally developed by Sonic Foundry. I have been using Sound Forge in one form or another since the late 1990’s and in my view, it is the most flexible and adaptable tool in the audio editing market space (see Figure 1). Sound Forge includes a diverse and powerful set of digital audio signal processing tools, as well as many effects for manipulating audio.

Many e-learning professionals use other NLEs (including the open source program Audacity) to create and produce their audio. I would recommend any of the tools I mention in this article as acceptable for audio content creation.

Figure 1. Sound Forge waveform editor UI (click to enlarge)

Sound Forge software allows you to edit, record, encode, and master nearly all forms of digital audio including WAV, AIFF, and MP3. According to the Sound Forge website, the application has tools for:

• Sound Design and Mastering
• Stereo and Multichannel Recording
• Audio Editing and Workflow
• Powerful Effects Processing
• Audio-for-Video
• Dolby Digital AC-3 export

I'm not going to discuss the fundamentals of audio editing here, but we can say that to a great extent, audio editors are like 'word processors for sound.' All the good ones, including Steinberg WaveLab, Audacity and Adobe Audition employ the same user paradigm, and as a result the features of one are pretty much replicated in all the others.

In audio editing, the purpose of a marker is to highlight a specific moment or event on the timeline so that you can return to it later. You may want to highlight a extraneous noise like a cough or click for deletion, or mark two points in a selection to copy or remove it. In audio narration, markers are typically used to set the transition between two sentences, slides or onscreen event (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Sound Forge marker (click to enlarge)

Using Sound Forge

Some basics…

Opening a File

Sound Forge can edit WAV, MP3, AIFF and a range of other file types. To open a file, just click FILE-> OPEN. The file will open in either mono or stereo, depending on the specific file format.

Controlling Playback

Open a sound file. Use all of the buttons highlighted in Figure 1 (don’t forget to zoom in and out).

Selecting Sounds

Its easy to select a particular sound area. Just click and drag over it. If selecting a stereo sound, drag between the left and right channel to get them both (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Click and drag to select audio - stereo instance (click to enlarge)

You Try:

1. Practice selecting areas of the wave.
2. Adjust the selection by dragging at the point where the selection ends.
3. Play the selection.
4. Copy and paste the selection to the end of the sound
5. Delete sections by selecting them and hitting delete on your keyboard.
   

You can also select in smaller segments (right down to the single bit level) by holding SHIFT on your keyboard and using the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys. The more you zoom in to the waveform, the higher the level of precision you can achieve.

Markers

Markers enable you to choose edit points and to help you to accurately events in the waveform timeline. To add a marker:

1. Click a point in the waveform.
2. Select SPECIAL >> INSERT MARKER from the menu, or press the M key
   

If you have many markers in your audio file, it's useful to name them. It’s typical for audio narration for e-learning presentations to have many slides or events, and by extension quite a number of markers. I suggest that you name the markers for the slide or event that the following narration describes. To name a marker, right-click its handle and select EDIT... (see Figure 4). Enter some appropriate text in the dialog box - here, I have called the marker "Course Outline."

Figure 4. The Edit Marker dialog box (click to enlarge)

Marker Navigation

You can automatically navigate from marker to marker by pressing CTRL + LEFT ARROW to go back, or CTRL + RIGHT ARROW to move forward through the timeline.You can select the waveform between markers by pressing SHIFT + CTRL + LEFT / RIGHT arrow.

You Try:

Using your sound editor of choice, try out the activities described in today’s blog post. Click the link to download a fully functional 30-day trial version of Sound Forge.

Saving Markers

Markers are automatically included when you save your audio file. Some professional audio editors also enable you to save the markers as metadata in a separate file called an Edit Decision List (EDL) which is useful when you’re creating video presentations, but that as they say, is another story…

Next: Using markers with Adobe Presenter.
Soon: Using markers with Adobe Captivate.

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