Starting the encoder

Once Windows Media Encoder is configured, it is ready to start encoding the ASF content. Select Start from the Encode menu or press the start button.

You are presented with the start window after a configuration is completed and when you open Windows Media Encoder from the Start button after saving a configuration file. The start window is composed of a toolbar and three information panels.The toolbar contains shortcuts to common menu commands, such as starting and stopping the encoder, preview video, and help. The panels contain the following information:

• The Summary Statistics panel provides information about the encoding session, how long it has been encoding, how much data has been encoded in the session, the current bit rate of the content currently being encoded, and the number of frames per second that are being encoded. This gives you a quick means of seeing whether or not the encoding session is providing good quality content.
• The Summary Settings panel provides information about the configuration you are using. It shows which codecs are being used, which input sources are being used, the output file (if any) , and the name of the template stream format (TSF) , if used.
• The Connection Information panel provides the stream reference for the encoder. This is the information that is used for connecting a Windows Media server or a Microsoft Windows Media Player client to the Windows Media Encoder content stream.

If you have enabled script commands, the script command box is at the bottom of the start window. To send a script command, type the script command in the box, for example:

URL HTTP://www.example.microsoft.com

and then click the Send icon at the point in the content stream that you want the specified action to occur. Once sent, the script command is embedded into the ASF stream and is carried out by the Windows Media Player client during viewing.

Once you start the encoder, statistics will start to accrue in the Summary Statistics panel, and the camera icon will change from Off Air to On Air.

Related Topics

• About template stream formats
• Script commands
• Stopping the encoder
• Viewing statistics