Chris Knowlton's Blog

Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Expression Encoder 4 was released today, and comes with some great updates. For example, SP2 adds the ability to do GPU encoding with Intel Sandy Bridge processors, and there are new multi-channel audio options including AAC and SRS support. For live scenarios, you can now control IIS Smooth Streaming publishing points from Expression Encoder. There have also been improvements in screen capture encoding, the built-in player templates, and new SDK samples to help you get started faster with building encoding applications.

An update to the Microsoft Media Platform (MMP) Content Manager has been released. Content Manager provides an end-to-end video workflow that allows you to create live streaming events, transcode on-demand content, manage and publish video, edit video, and insert mid-roll advertisements.

The newly released Microsoft Media Platform Content Manager pulls together an end-to-end video workflow that allows you to create live streaming events, transcode on-demand content, manage and publish video, edit video, and insert mid-roll advertisements. This open-source release can be used by enterprises, educational institutions, and broadcasting companies to manage their video assets using a lightweight and highly-customizable solution built on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Media Platform (MMP) technologies, including Silverlight 4, IIS Media Services 4.0, and Expression Encoder 4.

The long-awaited Beta release of IIS Transform Manager is now available! With this release, we’ve incorporated some great feature requests from a large number of customers who have been running the Alpha release in commercial production for months. In addition to the previous ability to almost instantly convert Smooth Streaming content for use on Apple iOS devices, Transform Manager now also enables you to convert segmented .mp4 files to Smooth Streaming presentations and then apply DRM encryption. Add to this the new ability to scale out across multi-core HPC clusters, plus improved monitoring and management controls, and you have one very high-performance media transform engine at a very low price point.

At the Streaming Media East show next week, we are holding two half-day workshops on Monday, May 9^th, entitled "Upgrading From Windows Media to The Next Generation Microsoft Media Platform" and "Using SharePoint for Video Delivery and Content Management". These workshops normally cost $245 to attend, but we have a few seats to fill, so are giving away five free passes to attendees who work at enterprise companies and are tasked with deploying video.

Join Microsoft, Adobe, Highwinds, and Conviva for a free Master Class webcast on Live Webcasting. Going beyond production values and product descriptions, this session gets into the "how-to" of delivering cost-effective high quality live events with streaming media. The live webcast will be on March 17th, 2011, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time; the on-demand version of the event will be available starting March 18th.

The Microsoft Expression Encoder team recently announced the release of Expression Encoder 4 Service Pack 1 (SP1), containing some great new features for live and on-demand IIS Smooth Streaming. As you probably know, Smooth Streaming is a technology that dynamically adjusts playback rates and quality to provide each end user with the highest quality content that their bandwidth and playback device will allow.

IIS Media Services 4.0 was released yesterday, just in time for Streaming Media West. Coming just one year after the previous major release, IIS Media Services 4.0 allows you to encode once and deliver adaptive streaming content to three screens across multiple file formats and protocols. Keep reading to learn more about the new features, or install it now.