Announcing Expression Encoder 4 SP1
Just received this news…
Service Pack 1 for Expression Encoder 4 will be released on January 31, 2011. The encoder update will be available for download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/service-packs/Encoder.aspx
This is a significant update to EE4, boasting an impressive list of new features:
| Feature | Expression Encoder 4 | Expression Encoder 4 Pro |
| GPU acceleration |
x |
|
| Live template support |
x |
x |
| Live screen capture |
x |
x |
| Caption updates |
x |
|
| Improved deinterlacing options |
x |
x |
| DRM content key |
x |
|
| HE-AAC codec |
x |
|
| Live push/pull |
x |
x |
| Windows Phone 7 presets |
x |
x |
The most significant one, as I mentioned in my previous post, is GPU-accelerated H.264 encoding. It is powered by NVIDIA CUDA technology via the MainConcept H.264 CUDA SDK. The Expression Encoder team has put together an excellent white paper describing the new feature and best practices. A separate report will be published later this week with performance data and comparisons of recommended PC configurations.
Update (1/27/2011): An interesting note about the H.264 GPU acceleration feature: When using the EE4 GUI application, GPU-accelerated H.264 encoding will be enabled by default (assuming your hardware is CUDA 1.1 compatible) unless you decide to disable it via the Tools|Options configuration dialog. However, when using the EE4 SDK, GPU acceleration will be disabled by default, meaning that any apps that you built on the EE4 SDK will need to be recompiled with the GPU acceleration option explicitly enabled if you want to take advantage of the new feature. Otherwise they will just default to the old CPU-based H.264 encoding method.