We have just made available a new option that allows users to purchase the full version of Expression Encoder as a standalone product.  To recap what this means, let’s start with the free version of Expression Encoder.  This is available from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b6c8015b-e5de-46c0-98cd-1be12eef89a8&displaylang=en

and contains the full feature set of the product with the following limitations:

• Screen capture up to 10 minutes
• No Smooth Streaming output
• The following CODECs are not present: AC3 Decoder, MPEG2/TS Decoder, AVC-HD Decoder, H.264 Encoder, AAC-LC Encoder/Encoder

(Note.. the installer is currently miss-labeled as Encoder_Trial_en.exe but is, in fact fully featured bar the above list and also not time-bombed as in previous versions.)

If you try and access these features you’ll get the following message:

As of today, the purchase link now points to a new Microsoft Store page where you can get an Expression Encoder 3 license for $49:

Expression Encoder 3 is still available as part of Expression Studio 3, Expression Web 3 as well as through the Expression Professional Subscription and MSDN programs.

In their recent QuickTime update, Apple added a new DLL dependency to their SDK which unfortunately breaks our QuickTime integration. Until this situation is resolved in a more permanent fashion, here is a workaround to get QuickTime to work again in all versions of Expression Encoder:

• From the Start menu, right-click on "Computer" and select "Properties".
• Select "Advanced system settings"
• In the "System Properties" dialog, click on "Environment Variables..." in the Advanced tab.
• In the "System variables" list, find the "Path" variable and double click on it.
• Add this string at the end of "Variable value" to add the missing directory to your path:

;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\         (For a 64-bit environment)

or

;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\                 (For a 32-bit environment)

• Click OK to close all the dialogs and restart Windows. QuickTime will be working again in Expression Encoder.