Expression Encoder

We on the Expression Encoder team are proud to announce that Expression Encoder 3 is complete and will shortly be available!  Since releasing V2 SP1 back in November of 2008 we have worked hard to improve core encoding capabilities,  continued to enhance new features such as Smooth Streaming, H.264 and editing as well as broaden the applicability of the product by adding new features such as Screen Capture.

We have also focused heavily on our Silverlight output upgrading the MediaPlayer control to Silverlight 3 and the template skins that are based on it.  We’ll drill into the details of what is new over the course of this post and look forward to hearing your feedback.

So how do you get Encoder 3? We’ll keep you in suspense a little while longer and direct you to the http://team.silverlight.net blog for the official announcement of Expression Studio 3.

Encoder Enhancements

We’ll start our tour of what’s new with the enhancements to the core encoding engine of the product.

Improved H.264.  First up, we’ve improved the H.264 encoder that was part of V2 SP1 by adding support for custom resolutions (V2 SP1 was limited to two portable device-specific resolutions), single pass CBR, VBR Constrained, VBR unconstrained and Quality-based VBR rate control methods, Main Profile support, B-Frame support and advanced settings which include the ability to choose between the two major Entropy modes of Context-adaptive variable-length coding (CAVLC) and Context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CAVAC).

VBR Smooth Streaming.  Microsoft is investing heavily in Smooth Streaming across its product lines, which in conjunction with Silverlight, enables everyone to watch great quality video on the web at up to full HD 1080p. One of the results, that we are very excited to be shipping, is a brand new VC-1 encoder that has been optimized specifically for the multi-bitrate, multi-resolution nature of IIS Smooth Streaming.  Some of the features of the new technology include:

• A new rate control that uses an analysis pass to distribute rate across GOPs
• Support for variable GOP duration (the original CBR form of encoding requires fixed GOPs)
• Dynamic optimization of coded resolution based on scene complexity and bitrate.  Additionally, directional energy measurements are used to change resolution both horizontally and vertically
• An optimized polyphase filter for resizing resulting in better speed and quality that has been optimized for the SSE4 instruction set.   
• Significant performance optimizations such as sharing motion information across bitrates and a faster analysis pass
• Ability to cancel an encode if QPs start to spike, and restart with lower resolution

Source CODECs.  In Encoder 3, we’ve broadened our support for source CODECs.  We have improved the performance of our H.264 decoder as well as adding support for AVCHD format.  We’ve also added some enhancements to our QuickTime stack to enable compatibility with ProRes which will help with post production workflows.  We are also pleased to be shipping Dolby Digital decoding in the box.  Finally, we’ve added the ability to import Smooth Streaming files so that you can review an encode outside Silverlight.  In this case, you are able to open the .ism file and the largest stream will be rendered.  This final feature is also available outside of Expression Encoder because we register the decoder on the system.  This means that once the full version of Expression Encoder has been installed, other applications on the system that can make use of DirectShow source filters will be able to open .ismv files.

Audio Enhancements.  We heard your feedback and added support for multi-channel audio output:

We have also added the ability to select between multiple audio streams, where sources have them, as well as support for the Voice codec and VBR audio encoding. Last but not least, we dynamically determine what audio encoding capabilities are available from the host OS.

Performance.  Performance is something we are never done with.  In Encoder 3 we’ve made great progress, particularly on multi-core, multi-processor scenarios.  First off, our core encoders have been rev’d to include support for newer Intel SSE instructions as well as support for up to 8 physical cores.  Secondly, we’ve improved CPU utilization on multi-core systems by parallelizing preprocessing tasks.  To illustrate the improvements, here are some before and after comparison charts based on analysis of Encoder 2 and Encoder 3 performance:

  
Core 2 Duo Laptop; Vertical axis time in seconds – smaller is better; V2 in blue, V3 in red; results aggregated from 6 different source files

 
Dual proc 8 Core Xeon; Vertical axis time in seconds – smaller is better; V2 in blue, V3 in red; results aggregated from 6 different source files

We are working on more performance comparisons including i7 Nehalem systems which we’ll publish in due course.

Live Encoding.  We spent a bunch of time in this release moving the Live portion of our encoder over to using the new encoding pipeline first introduced in Encoder 2.  This results in some immediate benefits such as better performance and de-interlacing support as well as some potential future benefits.  We’ve also added support for WMA Pro audio in Live, a new object model for Live (more details on this in the API section) and support for a broader range of capture devices.

Expression Screen Capture

In recent years, screen-casting has become an extremely popular way of sharing information you are looking at on your system with other users; encompassing eLearning, product support, user-generated content and many other domains. Included with Expression Encoder 3 is a new application called Expression Encoder Screen Capture available in the start menu or from within the main Expression Encoder UI.

You simply decide if you want to record webcam, and mic as well as the screen and system sound, pick a screen region with the easy to use Window picker (or by free-form selection):

.. and start capturing.  One of the benefits of our new implementation is that we capture to a light weight intermediate CODEC, developed by Microsoft Research, rather than attempting to capture and encode directly to VC-1 or H.264.  This leaves more of the CPU available for the application you are capturing.  After capture, it is easy to import the sources into Expression Encoder for final encoding and Silverlight templating if required.

UI Enhancements

Improved profile palette.  As Expression Encoder has evolved between versions, the old Encoding settings palette had became increasingly unwieldy.. so for Encoder 3 we rebuilt it from the ground up. 

The most common encoding settings are now easier to find and set.  The advanced encoding settings are hidden by default so you only see the options you need.  And the ability to address different output CODECs is now explicitly designed in.

Inside audio and video sections, there are many enhancements that make day to day tasks easier such as changing the aspect ratio or configuring multiple streams for Smooth Streaming.

Preset Palette.  Encoder 3 now has a more extensive library of encoding presets including an expanded set that target devices such as Xbox, iPod, Zune and the forthcoming Zune HD, online video services such as Facebook and YouTube and an expanded and improved set that target IIS Smooth Streaming.  As well as the expanded library, we have also added a new searchable preset palette where both system and user presets are stored as well as the ability to easily apply presets to all items via right-click.

Dockable palettes.  In common with the rest of the Expression 3 suite, Encoder 3 now uses the common palette docking framework which enables you to lay out your interface however you choose by simply dragging palettes and either popping them out into floating windows or grouping them into docked locations.  The Hide Palettes function has also been enhanced allowing the hidden palettes to pop open on hover.

Summary Palette. Summary information has been moved into a separate palette which can be displayed via the Window menu.

Cog Menus.  In order to streamline palette-specific functions, we’ve introduced cog menus:

Cog menus are present on all palettes.  We’ve also got rid of the small white dot menus that were somewhat undiscoverable :-).

Editing Enhancements.   In Encoder 2, we had the concept of adding a leader and trailer to a main file.  In Encoder 3, we have removed leader and trailer and replaced it with an extended Clips palette which enables multiple items to be stitched together.  This enables scenarios such as multiple leaders / trailers, Ad insertion and simple editing.  

It is also possible to set the stretch mode per clip and choose to apply crop which was not previously possible with leader and trailer.  You can append still frames (and set their duration) as well as XAML animations. Note that all of the enhanced editing capabilities are also available through the object model.

Silverlight 3 MediaPlayers

The Silverlight mediaplayers that have shipped in the box with Expression Encoder since V1 make it really easy to publish videos that target Silverlight.  In Encoder 3, we have updated all of the included templates to be based upon Silverlight 3 which means they are offered in the easy to use and deploy XAP format and all share the same common MediaPlayer control at their core.  We have also exposed the core MediaPlayer control in the Blend 3 toolbox which makes it easy for designers to embed and customize a full featured MediaPlayer in their projects that supports captions, chapters, smooth streaming etc.

SL3 specific features.  We have added a number of Silverlight 3 specific features to all of the new players including

• Cached composition:  Think of cached composition as hardware acceleration for the final frame presentation step.  Enabling cached composition (on by default) is as simple as a checkbox and results in much lower CPU utilization which helps general playback performance particularly on lower end systems such as NetBooks.  It also means that setting Stretch Mode Uniform incurs no performance penalty.
  
• Offline support : Offline also known as Out Of Browser (OOB) is a new feature of Silverlight 3 that enables users to install Silverlight apps locally on their Mac or Windows machine.  In Encoder 3, if you choose to enable offline support when you publish a Silverlight video, the user will have the option of downloading and installing not only the media player code but also the video and audio files.
  
  This feature also works in conjunction with IIS Smooth Streaming so you get the benefit of adaptive streaming when online and a downloaded, high quality version to watch when away from a network.
  
  To show this in action, I created the following screencast.  Note that you can actually try the offline feature on the screencast it by clicking on the cog menu and selecting Offline :-)
  
  
  
  
• We’ve made some changes to the Adaptive Streaming support that is baked into our MediaPlayer control.  Firstly, we’ve improved the bandwidth heuristics in a number of ways such as using the new CPU load metrics available from the Silverlight 3 runtime and constraining the playback resolution based on the size of the video window (to prevent bandwidth wasted by downloading e.g. 720p when the window size is only e.g. 320x240).
  
  We have also moved the heuristics into a separate XAP so that the adaptive streaming module can be loaded only when necessary thus helping to reduce the core download size.  Finally, we have changed the way we distribute the Media Steam Source (MSS) that implements the client portion of IIS Smooth Streaming.  We have moved to a model where we ship object code for this component, not source.  Source code is shipped for all other MediaPlayer functionality and is usable, redistributable and modifiable under the MS-PL.

New Player Skins.  We have worked with ace design firm Archetype to create some great new player skins featuring smoothly animating controls and new Silverlight 3 features such as perspective transform.

Other Silverlight Improvements:

• XAP Size reduction: we’ve taken steps to reduce the size of the MediaPlayer control.. the core player is now 109k down from 162k in Encoder 2 SP1.
  
• Popout: We’ve added a Popout feature to the templates that allows a video to be popped out of a webpage as a webpage dialog.. you can then drag to another monitor and go fullscreen to keep watching while you work.   
  
• Scriptability: The core mediaplayer control is now fully scriptable from Javascript.
  
• Improved Install Experience: Expression Encoder now automatically generates a Content Gate install experience for users that don’t have Silverlight Installed:
  
  
     
• Improved accessibility on Silverlight Media Player: We’ve added tooltips to buttons on the MediaPlayer and done some additional testing with screen readers.
  
• Edit in Expression Web:  We offer the ability to edit the output of a job in Expression Web.
    
• Preview in Browser:  You can now open a Smooth Streaming job previously encoded and saved and start up the Smooth Streaming preview server and launch the default browser without having to re-encode the job.
  
  
  
• MediaPlayer control available in Blend Asset Palette:  When Expression Encoder is installed on the same system as Blend, the Expression MediaPlayer control becomes available in the Blend asset palette.  This enables designers and developers to easily use and customize our base player and take advantage of all the built-in functionality such as chapter points, closed captions, play lists smooth streaming, Offline support etc.
  
• Transcoding in Expression Web:  Expression Web ships with Expression Encoder and utilizes the API to offer simplified transcoding functionality integrated right in.

API Enhancements

Expression Encoder has had a .NET API since Version 2.  In Version 3, we are making some changes:

Object Model for Live Encoding. Live encoding now has an object model so you can create applications that capture and stream from live capture sources as shown here:

   1: using (LiveJob job = new LiveJob())

   2:            {

   3:                // Create a new file source from the file name we were passed in

   4:                LiveFileSource fileSource = job.AddFileSource(fileToEncode);

   5:  

   6:                fileSource.PlaybackMode = FileSourcePlaybackMode.Loop;

   7:  

   8:                //Alternatively, enumerate a capture device (not shown here)

   9:  

  10:                job.ActivateSource(fileSource);

  11:  

  12:                WindowsMediaBroadcastOutputFormat outputFormat = new WindowsMediaBroadcastOutputFormat();

  13:  

  14:                // Let's broadcast on the local machine on port 8080

  15:                outputFormat.BroadcastPort = 8080;

  16:  

  17:                // Set the output format on the job

  18:                job.OutputFormat = outputFormat;

  19:  

  20:                // Start encoding

  21:                Console.Out.Write("Press 'x' to stop encoding...");

  22:                job.StartEncoding();

  23:  

  24:                while (Console.ReadKey(true).Key != ConsoleKey.X)

  25:                {

  26:                    // We are waiting for the 'x' key

  27:                }

  28:  

  29:                // Stop our encoding

  30:                Console.Out.WriteLine("Encoding stopped.");

  31:                job.StopEncoding();

  32:            }

Refactored Encoding Profile OM.  In addition to refactoring the Encoding profile palette, we have also refactored the underlying object model for configuring profiles making it simpler to use.  Instead of a monolithic Profile class, settings have been broken into a class hierarchy allowing the app to more easily and logically support multiple output CODECs such as H.264 and VC-1.

SDK in the Box.  The SDK is now shipped along with the application.  It has also been updated to include more samples, including a Powershell cmdlet sample.

Redistributable version of Expression Encoder.  We will also be offering a no fee redistributable version of Expression Encoder for developers who wish to ship applications using the SDK.  Stay tuned for more information on this that we’ll share here on the blog in due course. 

General

Windows 7 Superbar Progress: View at a glance how far through the encode has progressed:

First pass:

Second pass:

Removal of PS 2.0 requirement: We had feedback from users of older graphics cards that did not support Pixel Shader 2.0 that they were unhappy that they could not preview video.  So in Encoder 3, we still take advantage of PS 2.0 if present, but do not require it for preview.

Support for LargeAddressAware flag:  Some of the new features, in particular the new VBR Smooth Streaming Encoder, can require a lot of memory in certain scenarios.  In Encoder 3, we set the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE bit in the application’s PE header which enables 3GB of addressable memory on x86 systems (requires BCDEDIT /Set IncreaseUserVa 3072) and 4GB on x64 systems.  For more information on this and how to configure an x86 system to take advantage of this feature, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa906217.aspx and http://blogs.technet.com/brad_rutkowski/archive/2006/10/03/Hey-where-did-_2F00_3GB-go-in-Longhorn-and-Vista_3F00_.aspx

Removal of command-line encoder:  One of the tough trade-offs we had to make for this release was what to do with the command-line.  In Encoder 2 SP1 the command-line encoder was functionally behind what was possible in the UI and the Object Model.  We also observed a lot of community support for specialized command-line alternatives such as WMCmd.vbs by Alex Zambelli.  So, for Encoder 3 we took the difficult decision of removing the command-line encoder from the product.  Instead we directed our energies into making the .NET Object Model full fidelity in order to give application developers the maximum API surface area possible, including support for Live encoding.  To mitigate the decision, we are shipping working sample code in the box in the form of a Powershell cmdlet wrapper around the object model which provides basic Powershell-based command-line encoding supporting batch operations via the Powershell object pipeline:

Additionally, we are keen to work with the community to get an equivalent to WMCmd.vbs built and published on Codeplex to satisfy users who really want to automate encoder using cmd.exe rather than from Powershell or C#.  We hope you agree that this was the right trade-off to make.  If you have any opinions, positive or negative, please do send us your feedback.

Summary

We look forward to making the release available for download in the coming weeks and talking more about its capabilities.  Stay tuned and, as ever, your feedback is welcome.
The Expression Encoder Team.

Back in October, we announced a new Microsoft video delivery technology called IIS Smooth Streaming.  In a nutshell, this approach combines both client (based on Silverlight) and server (based on IIS) components that, together, deliver scalable media experiences up to 720p+ over the internet using the plain old HTTP protocol.

We have had a preview of the technology running over at http://www.smoothhd.com courtesy of our CDN partner, Akamai.  We also added support for encoding to, and previewing, the new format in back in Expression Encoder 2 SP1.

Today we are announcing beta availability of the IIS Smooth Streaming component completing the picture and enable users to test the technology end to end..  You can download the extension over on the IIS Site.

There will also be a number of talks on all aspects of Smooth Streaming at MIX (including one I’m doing on encoding).. keep an eye on https://content.visitmix.com/2009/sessions/?categories=Media for more info. 

For more information and background on the technology check out the following links :

John Bocharov

I’ve seen the future and the future is… Smooth!

Smooth Streaming Questions- We’ve Got Answers!

Alex Zambelli

Smooth Streaming Architecture

The Birth of Smooth Streaming

A Brief History of Multi-Bitrate Streaming

SmoothMBRCalc

James Clarke (me :-) )

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 3: Smooth Streaming playback heuristics (coming soon)

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 2: Debugging IIS Smooth Streaming client code

Inside Expression Encoder’s MediaPlayer control part 1

We just released an update to the Silverlight Streaming publishing plugin to support the Silverlight 2 templates that were added in Expression Encoder 2 SP1.

You can get it from the Download Center here.

We’ve just released an update to the SDK, which now incorporates the new features in Expression Encoder 2 Service Pack 1.

Here are the main things that are new in the SDK :-

SP1 has just gone live here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A29BE9F9-29E1-4E70-BF67-02D87D3E556E&displaylang=en

In addition to the enhancements that are documented in this post, the update includes support for the authoring of IIS Smooth Streaming content.

Note that the authoring of both IIS Smooth Streaming and H.264 for devices are only available in the full product, not the trial.  The remainder of the features such as audio overlays and WebDAV publishing are available both in the trial and the full product.

Today we are announcing:

• IIS Smooth Streaming, a new adaptive streaming technology evolved from work done for the web distribution NBC Olympics.
• Akamai is launching a preview of a new service called “Akamai AdaptiveEdge Streaming for Microsoft Silverlight” that will enable HD video experiences on the web (see http://www.smoothHD.com for more info).

As part of the announcement we will be shipping support for IIS Smooth Streaming in Expression Encoder 2 SP1 including the ability to simultaneously encode to multiple bitrates required to enable an adaptive streaming scheme, support for outputting to the new file format as well as support for the format in our Silverlight 2 player skins.

In simple terms, adaptive streaming is an approach that enables video playback to adapt, in real time, to changing network conditions and PC load and be able to offer the appropriate bitrate at any particular instant.  The IIS Smooth Streaming implementation offers various optimizations that make deployment and management of such a scheme simpler and more cost effective.  IIS Smooth Streaming will be an upcoming feature of the IIS Media Pack.

Expression Encoder 2 SP1 will be available real soon now.. when it drops, we’ll be following up with more info on the new features and how to create IIS Smooth Streaming content.  In the meantime you can check out the demos over at http://www.smoothHD.com.

Since the release of Expression Encoder 2 back in May of this year, we’ve been hard at work on new features. Today we are announcing Expression Encoder 2 SP1, which we plan to release by the end of the year as a free upgrade to Expression Encoder 2. There are a wide variety of enhancements across many areas of the product in this release and you’ll find a comprehensive list below. The three top-line features are: Silverlight 2 templates, H.264 support and WebDAV publishing available out of the box. Additionally, and consistent with a service pack release, we’ve fixed a decent number of bugs.

Silverlight 2 Player Templates

Our SIlverlight Player templates provide a quick and easy way to get a Silverlight video experience created including rich functionality such as DVD style chapter navigation, subtitles and metadata. With the advent of Silverlight 2, the first Silverlight release to including the .NET CLR, we have completely rewritten our player from the ground up.

MediaPlayer control

For starters, we’ve made a Silverlight 2 custom control called MediaPlayer. This is a core component shared by all of our new templates. It is completely customizable via our integrated “Edit in Blend”, just like the Silverlight 2 intrinsic controls.

Some of the new properties of the player include

• Utilization of Silverlight 2 controls e.g. buttons, sliders that can be independently styled
• Use of the Visual State Manager to enable declarative states e.g. for fullscreen mode
• Adaptive layout for better resizing
• Playlist support in all players (including metadata display)
• Byte-range seeking: When a user clicks forward on the timeline into a non-downloaded region, the player will cancel the current progressive download and start a new one from the point that has been seeked to.

You can use the MediaPlayer control outside of our player templates simply by referencing the project (source code included in the box). It is quick and easy to get up and running in XAML. Reference the control and instantiate thus:

When editing in Blend, rich UI is available for editing properties (e.g. playlists as shown here:)

Finally, we’ve removed all of the complex JavaScript needed to invoke the player from an HTML page; this is now accomplished with a simple <object/> tag.

H.264 encoding for devices

Since we shipped our V1 release, we’ve heard loud and clear from customers that they’d like more output formats than just VC-1. One of the most common scenarios that kept cropping up is content producers that are embracing Silverlight for web video but also wish to make the content available as a Podcast for devices.

We are therefore happy to announce that, starting with V2 SP1, we are adding H.264/AAC encoding to the product. For this release we are supporting two device profiles: a baseline 320x240 for smaller flash memory based devices and a 640x480 profile for larger screen resolutions.

Since it has been announced that Silverlight is going to support H.264 you can expect us to broaden our encoding support for the format in the future.

A/B compare enhancements

Band mode allows you to drag out a number of bands (as many or as few as you need) to better discern the difference between original and encoded videos. As before, you can play back in the mode and rotate the bands through 90 degrees.

Diff Mode plots the degree of difference of the source vs encoded as a luminance map. If the encoded clip is identical to the source, its difference would be rendered all black (this can be inverted by double-clicking).

Audio Overlays

Audio overlays work just like video overlays only they now enable you to overlay an audio track complete with relative level and fade in / out.

They also enable a workflow for adding an external audio track to a mute video source and outputting a muxed A/V output.

We’ve also enabled the audio from a video overlay to be enabled / mixed in if desired.

WebDAV publishing in the box

Publish to IIS, Sharepoint and other servers that support the WebDAV protocol.

Bug fixes / minor features

There is a reasonably large list of small fixes that have gone into this release, many too minor to mention. The following are the more noteworthy:

· Copy/paste markers and script commands: e.g. to/from Excel

· Cancelling multi-file encode no longer deletes completed items

· Removing items from jobs no longer deletes output

· Enhanced trimming of overlays (from front, drag middle)

· Run encode as background priority: so you can still use your machine for other tasks. Controllable via a setting

· Mouse wheel support for zooming, mouse pan support

· Enhanced Warning Triangles

· Better default for cropping output. E.g. If you have a 16:9 video that only had 4:3 video inside it, if you choose 4:3 output and select crop, we’ll automatically crop out the correct portion in the middle.

· Edit in Visual Studio option for templates

· Couple of additional VC-1 advanced encoding properties

· We now index unindex WMV/ASF files

· Source Mode stream copying will now work even for cases where we don’t support the source CODEC as an output type in our UI e.g. WMScreen

So there we have it. As always, feedback gratefully received,

Hope this helps

The Expression Encoder Team

In case you missed this press release, we just announced that H.264 support is coming to both Silverlight and Expression Encoder.

Later this week, at the International Broadcasting Conference (IBC) 2008 in Amsterdam, Microsoft Corp. will demonstrate an important new capability for Silverlight - playback of H.264-based video. H264 is a standard video specification that delivers high-definition video over a variety of delivery channels. During the event, Microsoft will also highlight how customers in Europe are reaping the benefits of adopting Silverlight.

At IBC 2008 we will be demonstrating a technology preview of H.264 video and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio playback support in Silverlight, and H.264 authoring using Microsoft Expression Encoder and Windows Server 2008 for delivery. Until now, Silverlight has supported the SMPTE VC-1 and Windows Media formats, as well as MP3 for audio, enabling customers to take advantage of broad support across the Windows Media ecosystem, including third-party tools, service providers and content delivery networks.

We’ll be talking more about the next release of Expression Encoder at Streaming Media West 2008 in a couple of weeks time.

We've just released an update to Expression Encoder 2 that allows VB.NET developers to build solutions using the Expression Encoder 2 SDK. 

You can get the update here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8727DD51-61B3-4692-ABDE-4FDD2779B0D0&displaylang=en

The cool part is that the update is only required on developer machines.  Any apps created in VB.NET on a machine with the fix will run against the unmodified Expression Encoder 2 release bits.

Hope this helps

James

A XAML overlay is a vector-based graphic that is rendered into the users video like a lower third, a logo bug, etc...  XAML is Extensible Application Markup Language and is a declarative XML-based language created by Microsoft which is used to initialize structured values and objects.  Below are examples of XAML overlays.

The goal of the this walk through is to allow you to be able to understand how to get your XAML design from Expression Design into Expression Encoder. 

To create a XAML overlay start by creating your graphic in Microsoft Expression Design or importing a design into Microsoft Expression Design.

After finishing your design you need to make the XAML overlay you created digestible by Microsoft Expression Blend (if you want to animate it) by completing the following steps using Microsoft Expression Design.

Select All

File>Export

Export as XAML WPF Canvas(Take note of where you save this file)

Silverlight XAML is not supported

At this point you can use the XAML overlay as a static graphic overlay in Microsoft Expression Encoder.

If you wish to animate the overlay follow these instructions.

Open Microsoft Expression Blend

Create a new project a WPF Application (.exe)

In the project panel right click on csproj file and Link to Existing Item…

Navigate to the XAML file you created in Microsoft Expression Design and Double click on the XAML file in the project tab

This will open up the XAML file that you created in Microsoft Expression Design and open it in Microsoft Expression Blend.

At this point you should be able to animate the XAML.

Add a new storyboard then add your animation key frames to create your animation.

Then navigate to the file menu and select save and your animated XAML overlay is ready for Microsoft Expression Encoder.

In Microsoft Expression Encoder add overlay and navigate to original Microsoft Expression Design XAML file from design and add this file as an overlay.  After adding the overlay you can customize length visible, fade in, and fade out.  On the video window you can scale the graphic and place it in the desired position. Since it is vector-based, the quality of text and graphical elements will be maintained.

Now that Expression Encoder 2 has been released, the team is hard at work on the next version of the product.
We want to be as responsive to community feedback as possible, and would like to set up a panel of customers with whom we can have ongoing conversations.

What is the Customer Panel?

The Customer Panel is a way for us to build strong relationships with users of our product. We'll use it as a way to understand your needs, workflows as well as how you use the product. We'll also use it to float future feature ideas and get feedback on them

What is the time requirement?

The Customer Panel is an ongoing project. The overall impact should be minimal and if at any point you no longer want to participate, just tell us. Typically we'll aim to reach out the Panel every couple of months or so. There may some times when we reach out more frequently.

How is this different to a Technology Adoption Program (TAP)?

TAPs are for specific releases and focus on getting you pre-releases of the software to play with. We'll use the same framework for the Customer Panel, but it is longer lived and goes beyond a particular release. This is an opportunity to have lasting impact on product direction.

OK sign me up!

If you want to take part, please send me an email by clicking here.

I'm pleased to announced that we just pushed a preview of the SLS publishing plugin for Expression Encoder 2 live:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/2/a/22a8da23-ffa7-4e5a-8fed-8239d3a7b322/SLSPlugin for Expression Encoder 2.msi

This plugin makes it very easy to publish and manage your encoded Silverlight video experiences online via the Silverlight Streaming service from within the Expression Encoder application.

As well as adding support for Expression Encoder 2, the plugin has a number of enhancements:

1. File-by-file upload:  Removes the zip step and improves uploaded reliability and performance.
2. Better upload progress reporting.
3. Quota display that shows available/remaining online storage space.
4. Support for application republishing: you can replace or merge existing applications.
   
5. UI enhancements (eg resizable preview window, application list sorted in inverse date order etc).

Hope this helps,

James

AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) is a file format commonly used by the latest generation of consumer HD camcorders. It consists of an AC-3 audio stream and an AVC (H.264) video stream encapsulated into a custom MPEG2 transport stream container.

While Expression Encoder 2 does not natively support that file type, it is possible to use them if the right components are installed. More specifically, three DirectShow components are required:

1. A MPEG2-TS splitter that supports the AVCHD variant.
2. An AVC (H.264) decoder.
3. An AC-3 decoder.

After installing those 3 components, you should be able to playback the M2TS files directly in Windows Media Player as well as importing and using them within Expression Encoder 2.

Also, David Sayed posted a very nice and detailed article on one of the multiple ways to get Expression Encoder 2 to support AVCHD files: http://blogs.msdn.com/david_sayed/archive/2008/05/31/avchd-recipe-for-expression-encoder-2.aspx

But if you own a Sony or Canon camcorder, you can also take advantage of the DirectShow filters that shipped with the bundled software.

Sony AVCHD Camcorders (SR, CX, UX and TG series)

Sony camcorder users: Sony Picture Motion Browser comes with a MPEG2-TS splitter and an AVC decoder. To use them in Expression Encoder 2, simply register sjvtdl.ax and SMParse.ax found in “C:\Program Files\Sony\Sony Picture Utility\Shared4” by following those steps:

1. Press the Start button, select “All Programs” and “Accessories” and right-click on “Command Prompt”.
2. In the context menu, select “Run as administrator”.
3. Click on the "Continue" button when the "User Access Control" appears. A command prompt window will appear.
4. In the command prompt, type: regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\Sony\Sony Picture Utility\Shared4\sjvtdl.ax”
5. Repeat step #3 with SMParse.ax
6. Close the command prompt.

Note: You will still need an AC-3 decoder to decode the audio.

M2TS files should now be playable via Windows Media Player and can be imported in Expression Encoder 2.

Canon AVCHD Camcorders (HG10, HF10/100)

Canon Pixela ImageMixer 3 SE registers all the required DirectShow components required by Expression Encoder upon it's installation.

Usage in Expression Encoder 2

To import the MTS or M2TS files in Expression Encoder, simply select "All Fles (*.*)" in the file picker in the import dialog. Then select the wanted MTS and M2TS files. The files will be treated like any other video files.

Known Expression Encoder 2 limitations:

1. Expression Encoder doesn't currently support 6 channel authoring, so DD5.1 audio will be downsampled to stereo.
2. Only deinterlaced encoding operations are currently supported.

We are hoping to further enhance the AVCHD workflow in future versions of Expression Encoder.

Last week we released the Expression Encoder 2 SDK. Here's a little video of Charles and I, giving a quick introduction. Apologies for the rather close camera angle as Charles was just holding the camera with his left hand, and it didn't help that our makeup and wardrobe department was out that day.

You can get it from the following location.

Microsoft® Expression® Encoder 2 SDK

Please try it out and don't hesitate to send us your feedback.

This post is an update to the previous Getting started with the Expression Encoder Object Model post, but updated to work with the RTM version of Expression Encoder V2 as the progress event handler changed a little from Beta to RTM.

(This post assume you’ve already installed Expression Encoder V2 available from here, and that you have Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 installed.)

First of all start Visual Studio and select File… New Project… You can choose which type of application you would prefer, like a WPF or Windows Forms application. For my test here, I’m just going to choose a Console Application. Give it a suitable name.

Go ahead and click OK.

Before you can start coding against the Expression Encoder object model you need to add references to the applicable assemblies. Select Project…Add Reference from the menu. When the dialog comes up you need to select

Microsoft.Expression.Encoder
Microsoft.Expression.Encoder.Types
Microsoft.Expression.Encoder.Utilites

and because some of our types derive from ObservableCollection you also need to select

WindowsBase.

You can select them one at a time or hold down CTRL and multi-select each one before clicking OK.

Now we're ready to do some coding.

To make it easier to pick up the Encoder classes let's first of all add a using statement. Just add the following near the top of the file where the other using statements are.

using Microsoft.Expression.Encoder;

One of the main classes that you'll end up dealing with in Expression Encoder is the MediaItem class. This allows you to find out information about a video or audio file and ultimately allow you to encode it. To create one of these you just pass the filename of the media file you want.to the constructor.

e.g.
MediaItem mediaItem = new MediaItem(@"C:\input\video.avi");

Obviously, you'll change the filename to the one you want to use.

Once this has been created you'll be able to access a bunch of information about the file

e.g.
FileDuration
OriginalAspectRatio
OriginalVideoSize

This is also the way you'll control how the video is encoded. If you type mediaItem followed by a "." you should trigger the Intellisense drop down which shows you all the properties and methods on this item. You should see a lot of properties that correspond to options in the UI of the main Encoder application. If you want Intellisense comments to appear and want to check out the help file, see this post.

For now we'll just use the defaults.

Before we can encode the file we need to create and add it to a Job.

This is simply done by the following statements.

Job job = new Job();
job.MediaItems.Add(mediaItem);

If you want to encode multiple files in the same job you can go ahead and create multiple MediaItem's and add them to the job.

Before you encode you need to set the directory where the output will go. This is done by setting the OutputDirectory property.

job.OutputDirectory = @"C:\output";

By default Expression Encoder will create output in sub folders named using the Job Id. These will be something along the lines of your machine name followed by the current date and time, e.g. "DEAN 4-21-2008 11.00.47 PM".

You can turn this feature off by setting the CreateSubfolder property.

job.CreateSubfolder = false;

Then the output will be created in the output directory directly.

For the simplest case, that’s all you need before encoding the job. This is done by just calling the Encode method.

job.Encode();

Putting it all together your program should look something like this.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Expression.Encoder;

namespace MyEncoderApplication
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MediaItem mediaItem = new MediaItem(@"C:\input\video.avi");
     


            // Create a job and the media item for the video we wish 
            // to encode.
            Job job = new Job();
            job.MediaItems.Add(mediaItem);

            // Set the output directory and encode
            job.OutputDirectory = @"C:\output";
            job.Encode();
        }
    }
}

Now you should be able to compile and run the application. After it's finished running, you should have the encoded output file underneath the output directory. It should have a filename that matches the original, but with a .wmv file extension.

If you run the application and it crashes, then that is probably because an exception was thrown that is not currently being caught. For example if your MediaItem points to a file that doesn't exist or isn't a valid media file, you will see that an InvalidMediaFileException is thrown. You can then run it under the debugger to get more details.

Assuming everything worked OK then for your next step you'll probably want to show some progress during the encode. First of all you need to a add a progress event handler function. Something like the following

static void OnProgress(object sender, EncodeProgressEventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine(e.Progress);
}

Obviously here we're just dumping the progress to the screen on each line. If you were writing a GUI app you would probably update a progress bar or something similar.

To tell Encoder to call this function you need the following line when you're creating the job.

job.EncodeProgress 
    += new EventHandler<EncodeProgressEventArgs>(OnProgress);

Now you’re code should look something like the following.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Expression.Encoder;

namespace MyEncoderApplication
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MediaItem mediaItem = new MediaItem(@"C:\input\video.avi");

            // Create a job and the media item for the video we wish
            // to encode.
            Job job = new Job();
            job.MediaItems.Add(mediaItem);

            // Set up the progress callback function
            job.EncodeProgress 
                += new EventHandler<EncodeProgressEventArgs>(OnProgress);

            // Set the output directory and encode.
            job.OutputDirectory = @"C:\output";
            
            job.Encode();
        }

        static void OnProgress(object sender, EncodeProgressEventArgs e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(e.Progress);
        }
    }
}

When you compile and run the application you should now see a bunch of numeric values going to 100, something like the following.

That’s it for a basic encoding app. From here you can now try experimenting with various properties on the MediaItem. For example, if you want to try tweaking the output profile, you can look at this post – Changing the output profile.

Note that if you’re running a 64-bit OS then you may also need to change your Target Platform within Visual Studio from “Any CPU” to "x86” as Expression Encoder is 32-bit.