14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's next-generation, cross-platform, cross-browser web client runtime, Silverlight, previously codenamed WPF/E - Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere, also affectionately dubbed the Adobe Flash killer, was unveiled to the world at the beginning of this week. In a manner similar to Flash, Silverlight is designed to enable developers to build rich media experiences on the web.
Microsoft also announced that it will begin shipping a key new media utility designed to generate rich media content for Silverlight. In this context, the Redmond Company has revamped its Microsoft Expression website in order to introduce Expression Media Encoder. Microsoft has planned to make available for download a free trial, but has not offered any indication for the timeframe except a vague "soon."
"Expression Media Encoder's accessible, friendly user interface gives designers, editors and producers the ability to generate gorgeous VC-1-encoded content wrapped in a Silverlight experience. The same encoding engine can be controlled via command line for compressionists churning through high-volume, repetitive encoding chores," reads a fragment of the product's description posted on the Expression website.
Expression Media Encoder will be a new feature integrated into Microsoft's Expression Media. The tool will support the creation of audio and video content for Silverlight. Tim Sneath, a Windows Vista Technical Evangelist revealed an insight into the functionality of Expression Media Encoder. "Having imported a raw video file, you can set a plethora of encoding options: output size, format, bit rate, key frames, overlays, cropping; you can do A/B comparisons of different encoding settings to identify the appropriate trade-off between bandwidth and quality; you can add markers to the video that can be used for subtitles, chapter headings, or even firing off script events; and lastly, you can save all these settings to an XML file for batch operation from a command line," Sneath described.
According to Microsoft, Expression Media Encoder will be the heart behind importing, compressing and publishing of video content on the web, delivering support for AVI, QuickTime and WMV. Expression Media Encoder will be in the end integrated with Expression Media and will be offered as a free download in the second part of 2007.
