Today the Expression Encoder Team has announced Expression Encoder 3. Expression Encoder 3 is part of the upcoming Expression Studio 3 suite and comes packed with new features such as support for H.264 and the new Smooth Streaming technology.
And it also brings another super cool feature: Screen Capture.
Today, screen-casting has become quite popular with bloggers. Screen-casting allows bloggers to share what they are looking at on their PC screen with readers of their blog. It’s a great way to show off really neat software experiences that people should see for themselves.
With Expression Encoder 3, they are introducing the Expression Encoder Screen Capture feature. This feature can be launched right from the Start Menu (I’ve pinned it to my Taskbar in Windows 7). People can choose a specific region of their screen they want to record (or the whole screen) and choose to record audio from their microphone and video from their webcam too. It records in a special light weight codec developed by Microsoft Research that when recording video, it doesn’t use up so much system resources during the capture process. That means the actual recording process doesn’t steal so much system resources on your PC that what you’re recording doesn’t look so hot. After recording, you can import the capture into Expression Encoder for final encoding and publishing (including some awesome new Silverlight templates).
I’ve been trying this feature out for the last couple days and it is fantastic. I am definitely planning to do a lot more screen-capture videos with Windows 7 features.
Speaking of Windows 7 features, Expression Encoder utilizes the new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 with encoding progress being displayed. The first encoding pass appears in yellow, and the second pass appears as green. Pretty slick!
Encoding First Pass:
Encoding Second Pass:
(Screenshots from Expression Encoder Team Blog)
For availability of Expression Encoder 3, keep your eyes on the Silverlight Team Blog for the official Expression Studio 3 announcement. Oh, and you should also check out…
For more information on Expression Encoder 3 and the Expression Encoder Screen Capture feature, click here to read the Expression Encoder Team’s blog post.
