Thursday, July 13, 2006
Microsoft Finally Releases Beta 1 of the Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition
Posted by Jason Dunn in "SOFTWARE" @ 10:30 AM
"Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition Beta 1 is an exciting new addition to the Windows Media tools family. It is a powerful tool for video professionals, optimized for the creation of high-quality offline encoding using Microsoft’s implementation of the VC-1 video standard (WMV9). Windows Media Encoder Studio Edition Beta 1 provides the key features necessary to create next-generation video content and capitalize on the growing importance of scenarios around optical media and video-on-demand. With the final standardization of VC-1, “Studio Edition”, will prove to be an invaluable tool for the offline encoding community."
This software tool is aimed at encoding professionals, not end users, but I'll probably install it anyway to see if it's any better than the rusty and dusty old Windows Media Encoder that hasn't had any significant updates in years. It's a repeat of what happened with Internet Explorer 6 - someone said "Hey, that's good enough!" and the team went on to different projects. I grow very frustrated when I look at Microsoft's attitude towards video encoding - on one hand, all of their products, from the Xbox 360 to Windows Mobile devices, pretty much play back only WMV content. They lock out every other format, forcing people to use WMV. Ok, fine - WMV is a great format, and I actually prefer using it when possible.
So where are the tools to allow me to easily transcode my content into WMV? Where's the Microsoft equivalent to the DivX Encoder that will allow me to quickly and easily convert to WMV? Why can't the encoder, or even Windows Movie Maker, handle DVR-MS files? Microsoft's solution seems to be to use Windows Media Player as the front end to transcode DVR-MS files, which works for Portable Media Center devices well enough, but there are no manual controls or options for transcoding at higher resolutions. Microsoft's attitude seems to be that their partners will make the software tools, but guess what, they're not: Nero 7 encodes to it's own MPEG4 format, and most other tools I've used offer DivX encoding, not Windows Media Video. I don't want to have to fire up Premiere Elements just to create a WMV file. Microsoft either needs to step up and offer their customers an easy to get their content into WMV, or start to support DivX for playback on the Xbox 360 and Windows Mobile devices.
This software tool is aimed at encoding professionals, not end users, but I'll probably install it anyway to see if it's any better than the rusty and dusty old Windows Media Encoder that hasn't had any significant updates in years. It's a repeat of what happened with Internet Explorer 6 - someone said "Hey, that's good enough!" and the team went on to different projects. I grow very frustrated when I look at Microsoft's attitude towards video encoding - on one hand, all of their products, from the Xbox 360 to Windows Mobile devices, pretty much play back only WMV content. They lock out every other format, forcing people to use WMV. Ok, fine - WMV is a great format, and I actually prefer using it when possible.
So where are the tools to allow me to easily transcode my content into WMV? Where's the Microsoft equivalent to the DivX Encoder that will allow me to quickly and easily convert to WMV? Why can't the encoder, or even Windows Movie Maker, handle DVR-MS files? Microsoft's solution seems to be to use Windows Media Player as the front end to transcode DVR-MS files, which works for Portable Media Center devices well enough, but there are no manual controls or options for transcoding at higher resolutions. Microsoft's attitude seems to be that their partners will make the software tools, but guess what, they're not: Nero 7 encodes to it's own MPEG4 format, and most other tools I've used offer DivX encoding, not Windows Media Video. I don't want to have to fire up Premiere Elements just to create a WMV file. Microsoft either needs to step up and offer their customers an easy to get their content into WMV, or start to support DivX for playback on the Xbox 360 and Windows Mobile devices.
