E-Learning Curve Blog

Free-to-use e-learning development 13: Windows Media Encoder

Yesterday, I discussed the free-to-use authoring tool called Microsoft Producer. The engine powering Producer is Windows Media Encoder. Media Encoder is a free-to-use (gratis) media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers and e-learning professionals to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for live and on-demand delivery (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Windows Media Encoder Wizard
[Click to Enlarge]

The latest version, Windows Media Encoder 9 Series can encode video using Windows Media Video version 7, 8 or 9. Audio encoding uses a number of Windows Media Audio v9.2 or v10 codecs.

Content can also be generated in uncompressed audio and video. The application is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Windows Media Encoder 9 Series enables two-pass encoding to optimize quality for on-demand (streamed or download-and-play) content. It also supports variable bitrate (VBR) Encoding for download-and-play scenarios. True VBR can be applied over the entire duration of a high-motion sequence, ensuring the highest quality. The program includes

• Windows Media File Editor
• Windows Media Profile Editor
• Windows Media Stream Editor

You can use the following file formats with Windows Media Encoder:

Windows Media Encoder offers a range of both codecs and encoding modes capable of high definition (HD) video quality and multichannel sound. Windows Media 9 Series Audio and Video Codecs include:

• Windows Media Audio 9
  WMA 9 includes new support for Variable Bit Rate (VBR) audio to produce the highest fidelity at the lowest data rate.
• Windows Media Audio 9 Professional
  WMA 9 Pro captures full-resolution audio (24-bit/96 KHz sampling) for both stereo and multichannel (6+ discrete channels) delivery at 128-768 Kbps.
• Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless
  Using this new codec, content can be compressed with no loss in quality, which is perfect for archiving digital music with 2:1-3:1 compression.
• Windows Media Audio 9 Voice
  WMA Voice is a mixed-mode voice and music codec offering superior quality for low data-rate streaming (<20Kbps).
• Windows Media Video 9
  The new WMV 9 codec creates high quality video for streaming, download-and-play, and physical format delivery. This means that a WMV 9 file is typically only half the size of a MPEG-4 file of comparable quality.
• Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile
  Key features of Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile include improved interlaced support and transport format independence. It can also be used on computers running Windows Media Player 7 or later. To use this codec with Windows Media Encoder 9 Series, Windows Media Player 10 must be installed.
• Broadcast Ready and Non-Square Pixel Support
  Non-square pixel support preserves the true resolution of DV and MPEG2 content without distortion.
• Windows Media Video 9 Screen
  Handles bit-mapped images and screen motion with the improved Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec.
• Powerful Encoding Modes
  New CBR and VBR encoding, using either 1-pass or 2-pass, enables progressive streaming, download-and-play, or delivery to peak constrained devices (CD/DVD).

Microsoft offer Windows Media Player for Mac as a download free of charge, but has no plans to provide future updates or product support. Windows Media® Components for QuickTime by Flip4Mac are also available as an alternative for Mac OS X users wanting to play Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video. Check out Mactopia for more.

I recommend that you use VideoLAN’s VLC Media Player if you need to work with Windows Media format files in a Linux environment. Click here to go to VideoLAN’s website.

More…
–

November 13 2009 03:58 pm | e-learning

3 Responses to “Free-to-use e-learning development 13: Windows Media Encoder”

1. Free-to-use e-learning development 14: Learning Content Development System | E-Learning Curve Blog on 19 Nov 2009 at 4:02 pm #

   [...] Development System Having recently looked at two pretty good free-to-use tools (Producer and Media Encoder) from a surprising source (Microsoft), today I will discuss the third in their little triumvirate [...]

2. Free-to-use e-learning development 15: Wink | E-Learning Curve Blog on 23 Nov 2009 at 3:53 pm #

   [...] e-learning development 15: Wink Screen Capture Tool The Microsoft tools (Producer, Media Encoder, LCDS) we looked at over the last three blog posts are pretty good at integrating pre-created media [...]

3. A Toolkit to Develop E-Learning in an Open (XML) Environment | E-Learning Curve Blog on 07 Dec 2009 at 5:00 pm #

   [...] Windows Media Encoder / Developer’s Kit [...]

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (hidden) (required)

Website