Encoding Formats for Silverlight Video
As you can see, I have been experimenting with posting video on my blog now that I have a HD Video Camera (JVC GZ-HD7U). I have been trying various encoding formats in Expression Encoder to get a good balance of bit-rate and quality. Here is my workflow:
- I shoot the video at 1080p
- I connect the camera via USB to my Lenovo T60p running Windows Vista and download the .tod files to my systems.
- I rename the .tod files to have .mpg extensions (because they are actually MPEG-2 encoded video files)
- I edit the video with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8.0 and output .WMV files at 1280x720 4Mbps bit-rate
- I open the .WMV files in Expression Encoder to experiment with various bit-rates to get the quality that I want. If I crank up the bit-rate, I get buffering, If I lower the bit-rate, quality suffers. I finally came upon a combination that I liked and saved it as a profile (Silverlight Streaming 720p).
- 24 frames/second
- VC1 Variable-bit-rate (1,333 average, 2000 peak)
- 10 second buffer
- 1280x720
- 96kbps audio
- I created my own branded Silverlight encoder skin called SynergisTV by copying and editing the XAML of the Blitz template that comes with Expression Encoder. I added my own logo that I created with my Charette typeface in Expression Design and imported it into Expression Blend and used the Mix logo XAML that you can find here https://www.visitmix.com/2008/mixtify.html. I used my simple Silverlight hyperlink technique to make both my logo and the Mix logo into hyperlinks.
- I zipped the files up and uploaded them to the Silverlight Streaming Service
If you have any suggestions for better encoding combinations for HD-quality Silverlight video, I'd love to hear your feedback. I have attached the Expression encoding profile so you can try it out as well. To install it, just drop the attached .prx file into C:\Users\%username%\Documents\Expression\Expression Encoder\Profiles.