To adjust advanced video settings, such as the size of the window for Windows Media Player, the number of frames per second, and the number of I-frames, click the Advanced button.
To determine the height and width of the streaming media content when it is viewed, use the Image Size panel. Quarter Common Interface format (QCIF) and Common Interface format (CIF) are predefined image standards: notice that CIF height and width are exactly double those of QCIF. These standards are provided because their image size (both height and width) is a standard that is supported by many codecs and video editing tools. The 160x130 and 320x240 options provide video windows that are slightly smaller than QCIF and CIF, respectively. The slight decrease in image size allows for more bandwidth to be used for video frames, and can improve content quality in some scenarios. Use these options if video sharpness is more important than video size for your content.
Use Custom to define your own image size. When resizing an ASF stream with the Custom setting, be aware that many codecs require image size settings in multiples of 16.
To set the number of frames per second for the media stream, use the Frames/Second dialog box. The Frames/Second value can be set from 1 through 15. How much you adjust this value depends on the speed of the computers coprocessor, and whether the computer is encoding high-movement or low-movement video. If more frames per second are used, there are smaller changes between frames, and the video looks smoother. If fewer frames per second are used, the video has a slower motion transition rate, and thus video with a lot of motion can appear disjointed. However, the more frames per second your computer is required to encode, the harder the coprocessor must work. It is possible to overwork your coprocessor by requesting it to encode more action than its capability allows. If this happens, Windows Media Encoder stops encoding, and displays a message.
The Second/ I-frames dialog box displays the number of seconds that separate I-frames. All frames in between I-frames are called delta frames. Delta frames contain only the information used to display change, and are considerably smaller than I-frames; however, the visual quality of delta frames is poor. As I-frames get farther apart, the size of the video (in bytes) gets smaller. As I-frames get closer together, the size of the video (in bytes) gets larger, and the computers coprocessor must work harder.
The Pixel Format displays the color depth standard that has been selected. The video card that the computer is using to receive the video source has certain color standards that it can display best, for example, RGBH = 64k thousand colors and RGBT = 16 million colors. For information about which pixel format your card works best with, see the video cards documentation. The pixel format is set automatically for the preferred video cards when you select one of the template stream formats.
The Delay Buffer is the amount of video coming in from the video card (measured in seconds) that Windows Media Encoder stores before it starts transmitting streaming media information. Five seconds is the default; it allows enough information to build up so that the client doesnt have to wait, (that is, buffer information) and the Windows Media Encoder computers memory isnt overloaded with delayed information. Increasing the Delay Buffer can overload the Windows Media Encoder computers memory, and affect the computers ability to encode information. Decreasing the Delay Buffer, in some circumstances, can cause clients to wait on Windows Media Encoder.
The Image Quality slider lets you fine-tune either the image quality. You can emphasize either video smoothness or image crispness. Video content is smooth when movement shown on the screen has easy transition from one position to another and the edges of objects are not jagged. Video content is crisp when images and motion are well defined and clearly delineated. As you increase the image crispness, the video becomes less smooth. In some cases decreasing the image crispness makes the video look better.