Delay when displaying images/videos or responding to touchscreen/button events in BrightAuthor.

Last Updated: November 30, 2015

Below are tips on how to speed up the response process:

General

• Update your player firmware to the latest production version listed on the Downloads page.
• Download the latest production version of BrightAuthor (also available on the Downloads page) and use it to design your presentation.

Images

• Larger images can take longer to open, while smaller images open faster. If your images are larger than the output resolution, they will open slowly or won't open. We recommend sizing all images to the resolution of the zone they are going to be played in.
• Bitmaps images (.bmp) open faster than other image types. The fastest image decode is achieved with an 8bit, RLE encoded bitmap. You can convert .jpeg images to .bmp using image editing software. 
• You can use the Image Cache feature in BrightAuthor (File > Presentation properties > Image Cache) to preload some images into memory so that they open much faster. You can use up to 16MB of graphics memory for the Image Cache. BrightAuthor shows how much memory each image will use when it’s opened. If an image is compressed (i.e. with the .jpeg or .png format), then it will consume more of the graphics memory than its reported file size. For example, a 100kB .jpeg image might use up 4MB of memory when decompressed. Since bitmap images are not compressed, the file size of a bitmap image will always represent exactly how much memory it will use.
• Since videos open faster than images, you can use one of two provided batch programs (batch program 1, batch program 2), which convert images automatically to videos, and then change your presentation to use those videos instead of images. These batch files will convert any .jpeg images in the folder into 10 second videos. Just copy .jpeg images to the folder (not in subdirectory) of the .bat file, and then run the .bat file. The only requirement is that the .jpeg image filenames can't contain spaces. You can still use a timeout event in BrightAuthor to indicate how long you want the files to play.      

Videos

• H.264 .mov videos open faster than other video formats. For HDx10 models, transport streams (H.264 or MPEG-2) are the fastest kind of video formats.
• Video files with no audio will open faster than ones with audio. Sometimes, even though there's no audio in the file, the encoder still includes an empty audio layer.

Touchscreen/Button Press

Slow response to a touchscreen or button press is almost always a content issue. Usually, what seems to be slow touch or button responses are caused by slow images. In these cases, we recommend using videos instead.