Final advice for Windows Media Encoder and Format SDK

[benwaggoner]

So, even though the VC-1 Encoder SDK has been out for a while, people are still using Windows Media Encoder and other products based on the old Format SDK for a variety of reasons.

I figured I should sit down and write up one last post about WME and FSDK, collecting all the final links and notes about best practices.

And here it is:

http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Best-practices-for-Windows-Media-Encoder-in-2009/


I’ve had some other recent blog posts that I haven’t linked here as well that may be of interest:
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Moonlight-10-beta-1-is-out/
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Netflixrsquos-Neil-Hunt-shares-encoding-workflow-info/
http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Building-high-performance-Silverlight-Media-Players/


Feedback and requests for blog topics are always welcome!

[JayBird]

Thanks so much for that. I'm still learning and am one of those people still using the old technology. This is because there are free apps that work with it and $200 for EE is out of bounds for me, since that money would buy Popcorn Hour which would eliminate the need for xbox 360 compliant wmvs. I may be alone on that, but that's my reason.

Also I must have been mistaken, because I thought the advanced profile on wmcmd.vbs or WMNicenc was WVC-1. Is that wrong?

[benwaggoner]

Thanks so much for that. I'm still learning and am one of those people still using the old technology. This is because there are free apps that work with it and $200 for EE is out of bounds for me, since that money would buy Popcorn Hour which would eliminate the need for xbox 360 compliant wmvs. I may be alone on that, but that's my reason.
Fair enough. We want to continue to support the hobbyist user.

Also I must have been mistaken, because I thought the advanced profile on wmcmd.vbs or WMNicenc was WVC-1. Is that wrong?
If you have the v11 Format SDK installed, you get 'WVC1' with "Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile". If it's the 9.5, you get 'WMVA'. Only WVC1 is 100% SMPTE compliant (and it's better to boot).

[bourke]

Fair enough. We want to continue to support the hobbyist user.
Thanks,

And Ben, are you aware of any corporate video conferencing technologies (either current or in the works) based around the VC-1 SDK?

...don't want to waste my time writing one that's all.

I.e. something similar to teleconferencing, but for video - e.g. 20 people displayed on everyone's board room projector.

I know VC-1 is better suited for this task than AVC, but I'm also comparing VC-1 to AVS. Have you had much of a look at the AVS specs/patent pool yourself?

[benwaggoner]

I want to think that the Tandberg videoconferencing products that support Windows Media use the SDK now.

But if you've got a great idea for a new wrinkle on the market, we'd love to hear what you're doing. Silverlight handles multiple video streams really well; 20 simultanous streams on a fast multicore machine should be doable this year.