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Expression Encoder and VB.NET

As James recently posted on the Expression Encoder team blog, we’ve just released an update to Expression Encoder 2 so that if you wish to use our object model from Visual Basic.NET you can now do that.

Download link

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Expression Encoder 2 SDK released

We released the Encoder SDK today. You can download it from the following location.

Microsoft® Expression® Encoder 2 SDK

Once installed, it will create a Start Menu shortcut under Microsoft Expression which opens an explorer window to the SDK directory.

The SDK installs a couple of XML files which enable intellisense comments within Visual Studio.

There is a Docs folder which contains the help file along with a PNG of the object hierarchy which can be printed if desired.

You'll also see a Samples directory which contain the actual samples. If you're running Vista and you want to build the samples directly from this location, remember that you'll probably need to run Visual Studio elevated.

The help file contains an introduction, details on the samples, the API reference and a few other bits and pieces.

image

We hope you find this useful, and please send us your feedback.

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Intellisense and Help file for Expression Encoder 2 Object Model

Just posted a link to the Intellisense and Help files for the object model to the Expression Encoder Team blog.

Head over, try them out and let us know what you think.

Thanks

Link

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Expression Encoder 2 is released

Expression Encoder 2 is now available. Click on the image to go to the Expression Encoder page where you will find a "Try Now" link to download the trial. We're planning to have more details of the new features up on the Expression Encoder Team blog soon. I'm also working on getting together a prelimary help file for the SDK object model and some XML files that will enable Intellisense comments within Visual Studio. Expect those soon...

image

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Changing the output profile

Once you've created a MediaItem, you're probably going to want to specify which video and/or audio profile you want to encode it with. There are a number of ways to obtain a video and audio profile. If you have your own PRX file that you wish to use, you can load it with code something like this

VideoProfile videoProfile;
AudioProfile audioProfile;
LocalProfiles.LoadProfileFromFile(@"C:\MyProfile.prx", out videoProfile, out audioProfile);

Once you have the profile loaded you can then set it on the MediaItem like so

mediaItem.VideoProfile = videoProfile;
mediaItem.AudioProfile = audioProfile;

If you want to use one of the built-in profiles you can obtain it with code something like this by just searching for the name of the profile.

VideoProfile videoProfile = VideoProfile.FindProfile("Hardware Device - zune");

This does have the disadvantage that the code isn't going to work on a non English version of Expression Encoder as the string will be localized into a different language. So in the RTM version of Expression Encoder we will include a static list of Video and Audio Profiles that match the built-in profiles we supply, so you'll be able to write the code a little easier like this

// Code from the future
mediaItem.VideoProfile = VideoProfiles.HardwareDeviceZune;

Once you've set the profile you may want to tweak it further by changing some of the individual parameters. You can do this with code like the following

// Funky code alert
mediaItem.VideoProfile = (VideoProfile)mediaItem.VideoProfile.Clone();

// Set the video bitrate and change the dimensions of the output video
mediaItem.VideoProfile.Bitrate = 64000;
mediaItem.VideoProfile.Height = 80;
mediaItem.VideoProfile.Width = 120;

You may have noticed the ever so slightly funky code at the beginning :-). At the moment, when you get an instance of a VideoProfile or AudioProfile class back we're internally creating what is essentially a read only version. So if you try to change one of the parameters you'll get an exception. To fix this at the moment, you need to make a copy of the class before you can change it and this is what the Clone line does. When the RTM version of Expression Encoder comes out, this hopefully should no longer be necessary and you'll be able to change things directly as you'd expect.

After you've done all this, you can go ahead and call Encode on the job and you should end up with a video file that matches the profiles that you've set.

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Overview of Expression Encoder 2

The session that our very own James and Charles did at Mix this morning is already online.  I haven't had a chance to watch it myself yet, but I'm sure James and Charles did an excellent job.

image

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Basic code to encode a file

Here's a very small snippet of code that uses the Expression Encoder object model to create a job, add a media file to the job and then encode it. There's a lot more to the object model, but I thought this would give a little taste of the basics. In the object model we wanted to expose most features of the full Encoder application, but we also wanted to make sure the user could do the simple operations without having to write a lot of code.

public void EncodeAFile()
{
    // Create a job and a media item for the video we wish to encode
    Job job = new Job();
    MediaItem mediaItem = new MediaItem(@"C:\input\MyVideo.avi");
    // Add the media item to the job
    job.MediaItems.Add(mediaItem);
    // Set the output directory where any encoded files will go.
    job.OutputDirectory = @"c:\output";
    // Set up the progress callback function
    job.PublishProgress += new EventHandler<PublishProgressEventArgs>(OnPublishProgress);
    // Encode the file
    job.Encode();
}

void OnPublishProgress(object sender, PublishProgressEventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine(e.Progress);
}
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Expression Encoder 2 Beta now available

Our very own imageJames has done a great job listing all the new features of Expression Encoder 2, over on the Expression Encoder team blog. Check out the post here, and you can download the Beta here.

One of the things I've been working on for our version 2, is the .NET object model that we're now exposing. Over the next few posts, I'm hoping to talk about how you can use some of the features in the object model, along with a few code snippets showing how things go together.

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It's alive

The Expression Encoder team blog is now live. Watch for more content coming over the next weeks.

http://blogs.msdn.com/expressionencoder/

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Cool mention of Windows Vista Movie Maker and DVD Maker

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2193575,00.asp

Yes I know it's a little gratuitous :-), but I got forwarded this link today and it is very cool to see someone that is really happy using the products you worked on.

Also, I know I need to start writing some more posts here and try to add some content instead of links to content :-).

Some things that are currently going on:

Just starting to work on the what the object model for Expression Encoder will look like.

I recently got a new laptop which is a tablet (Lenovo X61T). The handwriting recognition in Vista is awesome (I'm writing this with the pen), and the battery life is superb.

My wife is due to give birth to our daughter in about a week. So maybe if the baby keeps us up all night, I'll write some posts then :-)

More Expression Encoder stuff

Hot on the heels of the release of the Expression Encoder, Ben Waggoner has worked on some training videos that were produced by Total Training that have now been released.

Here are the links

Introduction to Expression Encoder
Enhancing Media
Metadata, Markers, & Silverlight
Live Production
Advanced Expression Encoder

and you find lots more training of other products in the Expression suite on the Microsoft Expression Training page.

Also Channel 9 has another Expression Encoder video with our own James Clarke and Jim Thill

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=339887

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Expression Encoder now available

Expression Encoder (formally called Expression Media Encoder) is now available to download.

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/download.aspx?key=encoder

If you've been using the earlier preview, then James has a great write up on his blog of the new features that have been added since that time.

http://www.clarkezone.net/default.aspx?id=c7a6bb98-f42b-49b6-aeba-e061722d69b8

Posted by deanro | 1 Comments

RAW Support

I'm not sure how well known this is, but we did work in Windows Movie Maker and Windows DVD Maker to use the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) to make sure we supported images in the camera's RAW format.

I know some folks like to shoot photos in the RAW format and previously you would have to convert those files to JPG or something similar if you wanted to use them in Windows Movie Maker.

Well in Vista, if you've imported some RAW photos into your Photo gallery it will now give you the option to download the codec to support those files (every camera has it's own RAW format). I know the codec for Nikon camera's has been out for a while and Canon's was released not so long ago and there are probably other cameras supported too.

Once you've done that, you'll be able to view the photos in Photo Gallery and if you import them into Windows Movie Maker or Windows DVD Maker they will know how to use the photos directly as well.

Posted by deanro | 1 Comments

Microsoft Expression Media Encoder Preview now available

You  can now download the free trial preview of the Expression Media Encoder. FlexibleEncodingWorkflows

We still have a bunch more work to do, but you can try what's available at the moment, and please use the newsgroup to give us your feedback.

Link to Microsoft Expression Media Encoder

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Top 10 Questions about Expression Media Encoder

Sean Alexander has just posted a list of top 10 questions (and answers) on Expression Media Encoder.

Top 10 Questions about Expression Media Encoder

If you have any other questions, let us know.

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