What's new in Expression Encoder 3

Introduction

Expression Encoder includes many new features to improve encoding quality and flexibility.

Screen capture

Expression Encoder includes the ability to perform screen captures of both still and video images. You can capture application screens or any other desktop element, and record any actions that you perform in those screens. In addition, Expression Encoder works in tandem with your web camera (webcam), or with any audio or video source that you can connect to your computer, so that you can also capture external video and audio as you capture your screen.

Multiple clips on the Timeline

With Expression Encoder, right on the Timeline, you can build a single clip that consists of several separate media files. With this feature, you can add any number of additional clips to your original clip, thereby adding scenes to your video or audio productions.

Additional Adaptive Streaming support (Expression Encoder with IIS Smooth Streaming only)

Expression Encoder includes more features to support IIS Smooth Streaming. Smooth Streaming is the Microsoft implementation of adaptive streaming technology, which enables a video to be encoded in varying bit rates and, on playback, to stream in "chunks." The Silverlight playback client determines the amount of bandwidth available for the content and, depending on availability, plays back only the stream encoded in the bit rate that is best suited for the viewer's bandwidth availability. Smooth Streaming provides a high-quality viewing experience that scales massively on content distribution networks, making true HD media experiences (720p+) a reality.”

New Silverlight templates

Expression Encoder includes new Silverlight 3 templates that take advantage of new Silverlight technology. The templates are visually rich and present the following new features to improve functionality:

• Support for playing your video offline.
• Support for H.264-encoded (MP4-encoded) media.
• Support for cached compositions.
• Support for playing your embedded video in a separate browser.

Presets

To help you work rapidly and with the highest quality settings for your encoding scenario, Expression Encoder includes presets that you can quickly apply to any content that you import. You can also save your custom settings as presets that you can apply repeatedly to future content.

Improved H.264 support

Expression Encoder includes extensive tools for customizing your H.264-compressed media. H.264, or MPEG 4, is an industry standard for compressing high-quality video that you can play in a wide variety of scenarios, from the web to your mobile device or MP3 player. When you are compressing your file as H.264 in Expression Encoder, you are not confined to default compression settings. Instead, you can adjust many compression parameters to control the complexity of the encoding job.