Numerous people have asked me what exact settings I used to recently record the series of VSMT blogcasts.

The software I used to record the demonstrations was Windows Media Encoder, which is freely downloadable on Microsoft.com. (Note that this also works correctly under Windows Server 2003. You may need to perform the download from a Windows XP machine and copy it across to your server.) Yes, there are many other products available on the market, but remember Windows Media Encoder is 100% free!

The settings I list here gave a reasonable balance between a reasonably decent playback experience while trying to limit the bit-rate to around 100K. I'm not saying the following settings are definitive though - if you know better, please provide feedback.

You can also download my settings file here if you want a quick way of setting it up. Save the .wme file from the ZIP download to "My Documents" and use File/Open when you start Windows Media Encoder to use those settings.

The most important thing to do is to adjust your display settings. I used 800x600 at 16-bit colour depth.

Start Windows Media Encoder and cancel the wizard
Click the Properties button

On the sources tab

• Enter an appropriate name
• Ensure Video is checked and "Screen Capture" is selected
• If appropriate, click the configure tab next to video to select which window or region is to be recorded. I tend to find full screen capture most useful (the default)
• Ensure Audio is checked

On the Output tab

• De-select "Pull from encoder"
• Check Encode to file and enter and appropriate filename (with a .wmv file extension)

On the Compression tab

• Under Destination, select "Web server (progressive download)"
• Under Video, select "Screen capture (CBR)
• Under Audio, select "Voice quality audio (CBR)"
• Under Bit rates, select "97Kbps Bit rate , 10 frames per second, Output same as input"

Note that the screen shot you see here will change when we edit the settings in the next step
Click Edit

General Tab for Compression settings

• The Name should be "Voice quality audio (CBR) / Screen capture (CBR)
• Select the appropriate language (unless you are american)
• Ensure under media type for audio, mode is CBR and the Codec is
  Windows Media Audio 9 Voice
• Ensure under media type for video, mode is CBR and the Codec is
  Windows Media Video 9 Screen
• The Target bit rate box should display 97Kbps (97000bps)
• The video format should be custom, and neither check box for interlaced
  or non-square output should be selected

Select the "97K" tab

97K Tab for Compression Settings

• I tend to up the buffer size from the default of 5 seconds to 8 seconds
• The video smoothness is changed from 50% to 100%.
• All other settings are left at their default settings.

Click OK to return to the compression tab

Back on the Compression tab

The destination, video and audio drop-downs should all now read "Custom".
The details box will contain the following information

Audio encoding mode: CBR
Video encoding mode: CBR

Audience: 97 Kbps
Audio codec: Windows Media Audio 9 Voice
Audio format: 4 kbps, 8 kHz, mono
Video codec: Windows Media Video 9 Screen
Video bit rate: 86 Kbps
Video size: Same as video input
Frame rate: 10 fps
Key frame: 8 s
Image quality: 100
Buffer size: 8 s
 

On the Attributes Tab

Enter appropriate information to tag your output file.

I kept all other tabs at their default settings. Happy blogcasting!

Edit by John: 3rd Nov 2005 - Rehosted download file.