Silverlight Video Support

When it comes to video, Silverlight supports the follow standards:

• Windows Media Video 7 (WMV1)
• Windows Media Video 8 (WMV2)
• Windows Media Video 9 (WMV3)
• Windows Media Video Advanced Profile, non-VC-1 (WMVA)
• Windows Media Video Advanced Profile, VC-1 (WMVC1)
• H.264 video and AAC audio (also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or MPEG-4 AVC)

First, create a MediaElement for the file you want to play :

<MediaElement x:Name="fireMovie" Source="fire.wmv" Height="200" Width="200"></MediaElement>

Often, you can recognize Windows Media Video by the file extension .wmv. Other video formats – for example, MPEG and QuickTime–need not apply. The last two formats in this list–VC-1 and H.264–are widely supported.

WMV files you use in your Silverlight application will be a final product based on larger, higher-quality original video files. Often, the original files will be in a non-WMV format.

To get the right results when preparing video for the Web, you need the right tool. Expression Encoder is a remarkably polished and powerful tool.

Key features:

Simple video editing : You can cut out sections of video, insert a lead-in, and perform other minor edits.

Overlays : You can watermark videos with a still or animated logo that stays superimposed over the video for as long as you want it to.

Silverlight-ready : allows you to create a fully skinned Silverlight video player.

To encode a video file in Expression Encoder, follow these steps :

1.To specify the source file, choose File Import. Browse to the appropriate media file, select it, and click Open.

2.To specify the destination file, look at the group of tabs on the right side of the window, and select the Output tab. In the Job Output section, you can specify the directory where the new file will be placed, and its name.

3.To choose the bit rate, look in the Presets tab (in the top-right corner of the window) and expand the Encoding for Silverlight section. If you’re using progressive downloads, you need to select a format from the Variable bitrate group.

4.After you choose an encoding, the relevant information appears in the Video section of the Encode tab.

5.To encode your video, click the Encode button at the bottom of the window, in the Media Content panel.