Using Audio Recordings as required activities
What's the best way to utilize audio files (mp3, wav) as required activites in a course? I don't want the user to download the file and play it locally. For testing purposes I converted one to an mp4 to upload as a "video" with just a black background to take advantage of the Brightcove player and the ability to set a required percentage to complete it.
Any other suggestions?
3 Responses
We don't have support for a native mp3 streaming solution, and Brightcove currently only supports mp4 videos. However your trick to convert audio to an mp4 may still be the best solution here as it will allow you to prevent the user from downloading the file and it will only allow them to play it within the context of the learning product.
Check out wondershare's mp3 -> mp4 conversion software. With their software it looks like you can convert an mp3 to an mp4 and add images which would prevent the black background you mentioned in your question.
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Thanks for the tip with Wondershare. Camtasia is a good option as well to import mp3 and add either an image, color, or animated background from their asset library before exporting as mp4. I went with black for simplicity, but certainly a lot of flexibility with a "dummy" background for the audio to suit individual styles. - Matt Kamen
Is there a way to control the display size of videos in LearnSomething? Creating a background image increases the size of the file. Since the video automatically scales to near full-screen, a high-res image needs to be used. This creates huge files (our mp3s are an hour+ long, and when converted to mp4s with a large image background, we're talking 250+ MBs). If we could limit the display size of the video, we could use a much smaller image and it would still look good.
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@David, In regards to a maximum display size for videos, we've made some notes on your request and it will be considered for an upcoming sprint. It does seem like our clients would be able to leverage this functionality, especially for legacy low quality video. Your mp3->mp4 scenario seems different, and I think Learnsomething has talked with your team about this on a few calls. If you have further questions on that scenario, please email us at [help@learnsomething.com](mailto:help@learnsomething.com). - Adam Spicer
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@David - I think that's a great one for the team at LearnSomething to consider, beyond just the mp3 to mp4 / background image implications. How about a maximum display width setting that could be set for each video through the video library to control the window/container size? Videos recorded at lower resolutions degrade quite a bit as they are scaled up to fit the window. - Matt Kamen
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We are looking into adding something like a maximum video width option to the videos in the video library... it is likely something that we could have live within the next couple of sprints. - Adam Spicer
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@David, the maximum video width option to the videos in the video library has been implemented and will be available for Sprint 60. - Manolo Pesquera
Matt, another solution we considered was loading the mp3 into Storyline. Depending how long your audio file is, I would split it into small increments and divide it across multiple slides (5-10 min of audio per slide). You could then set number of slides viewed as the requirement for completion. Of course, this would require you to have Storyline or a similar content publishing tool.