Free Product Giveaway: Microsoft Expression Studio

Thanks to the generous folks over at Microsoft, they have provided me with nine copies of Expression Studio that I can give away on the blog. The Expression Studio bundle includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Media and Expression Design and retails for $599. Expression Studio also includes a license for Expression Encoder and anyone can currently download a 180 day trail of the encoder here.

This drawing is now over. Dustin Reyes, Brett Stime and Jeff Parr won the drawing.

I will be giving these away in batches of three at a time and would like to give them away to those who will really use them as part of their daily job. To qualify to win a copy you must leave one comment in this post with a suggestion for Microsoft on how they can improve any aspect of Expression, Silverlight or Windows Media. Have you seen a feature you'd like included? Is there something missing that you think should be in the next version? Leave a comment with a working e-mail address. I will pick three users a week from today using a random number picker website and ship them out to the winners at no cost.

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me. I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and potentially write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It's great exposure on a blog that does over 300,000 page views a month.

Comments

[adi]

I for one, because I have little experience in programming, I would like this new media products to have their own "language", or al least procedures that can easily perform the basic stuff an average designer might use. An advanced programmer can do whatever he can think of, but a designer won't learn a new programming language, he will probably use what he is more comfortable with, and this isn't windows media/silverlight. And let's face it, the web is lead by designers, not programmers.

[sidepodcast]

h.264 encoding and playback.

everybody is doing it except them, and until they solve that, then working with the aforementioned products is both a headache and a hassle.

[Barry]

Like a previous poster
I would like to see MPEG 4 supported from an ingest and output stand point.

Thanks

[Danny Ortega]

H.264 seems likely to be the next big codec, however, I don't think Microsoft would give in on their push for VC1 based on their actions in the past. I would like to see them create integration points between expression studio and the applications that we all use to actually create the media. IE a plugin for final cut pro that lets you export a video with meta data markers that are then read and understood in expression studio.

[Charles]

EE really needs to incorporate some of the more advanced setting available from the underlying SDK (and available in the WMV PowerToy). Even better, it should be able to suggest optimal setting based on the source and targe.

[Glenn Flekke]

As a media specialist at a large corporation, I would really appreciate having a wider choice of packet sizes within Expression Encoder. Our ideal size is 1420 bytes, but EE has a very difficult time getting that small with all profile choices. Without these small packet sizes, our Windows Media streaming would be impossible. -- Glenn

[Brett Stime]

Support for crossdomain.xml files.

[TJ]

I can't comment on Expression because I have not purchased the software. I'd like to experiment with more Silverlight productions but don't quite understand the entry point. It seems Expression is the only way to get there. Are there any other tools to create the stuff?

[scott]

Just like Danny said.

I would like for a way to seamlessly work with our media programs. After Effects, APP, and so on. Although I doubt that will happen since Microsoft is competing with Adobe. We aren't going to drop our old tool sets that have worked for years unless we are forced to. They all need to work together in some manner.

[Catalin Tenita]

Hi,

I think the most important feature for the Silverlight product will be to allow working with Flash movies (flv). I mean, the format is ubiquitous on the net, almost a de facto standard, so allowing creating rich media application that will play with the most important format of video content will be important if they want to succed in creating a ecosystem of applications based on their platform.

[Min]

Expression design lacks CMYK design;

Expression web lacks an overview button when dealing with FTP files;

[Welebrity]

Silverlight needs to allow working with Flash movies(flv). Flash is almost a de facto standard on the web, so they need to add it. Webcasters in Flash are growing.

[Jason]

My biggest suggestion to Microsoft on the Windows Media technologies is to decrease the delay from encode to viewer from 15-20sec to less than 2sec. Flash offers this low delay streaming through FMS, however Windows media delay is too long. I'm researching low-delay streaming for 2way interactive streaming applications. Windows media just can't offer the low delay that Flash streaming offers today. So without reviewing the new Expressions studio, Microsoft needs to reduce the delay similar to FMS. Thanks for the opportunity to comment!

[David]

I definately need to get up to speed with Silverlight.

[Marit]

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Those of us who don't have the time to become expert users still need sophisticated tools. And yes, Flash is critical these days.

[CM Carlson]

I would like to see this product as a platform independent software. Or at least bundled for other OSs in a virtual machine so that it can be used with something other than WinXP.

Otherwise, it looks like a really cool bundle.....

BTW, I have a Windows machine that I can use this software with, so don't hesitate pulling my name out of the hat.

Curtis

[Grant Turner]

I'd like to see full Windows Media functionality through Silverlight, including rtsp, mid session stream switching for MBR encoded files as well as improved MBR functionality, (although this is more of a player / server communication issue I guess), and server-side playlist capabilities.

[Melvyn]

I'm a freelance technical writer working on multiple web-based projects. These projects would all benefit from the assistance of Expression Studio.

Like many of the other commenters, my tip for MS relates to Windows Media Player. The GUI of the application has barely changed in years. It's time to revamp the interface and give it a slicker feel. Also, system wide keyboard shortcuts would be a welcome addition - we don't all have Microsoft keyboards with built-in Media Keys.

[Dustin Reyes]

The deinterlacing functionality in Expression Encoder's live capture mode seems to be missing; I really liked WME9's implementation, so it would be nice if that was restored.

I'd also like for Encoder to have the ability to edit profiles in the live encoding mode; currently you have to import an archived file in the transcoding mode to make custom profiles.

[Marcus Singleton (BOLCC)]

Dan,
I have not yet found a way to import a .prx file in to EE either by On-demand or LIVE capture, add that option inside EE. Some users like me still use Multiple Bit Rate encoding for our audiences. Having the ability to create your own encoding profiles during a LIVE capture would be a wonderful addition to EE. Lastly, import .flv and .divx files into Expression Encoder. Thanks, for the opportunity to share my thoughts.

[Shane Higgins]

I'm sure this is coming in a future version, but they really need to include support in the Expression Encoder GUI for the advanced encoding parameters that are part of the Advanced Profile codec. I can't believe they let it go out the door without that functionality.

[Peter]

Another vote for H.264

[jawrat]

how about a little more transparency as to the integration of sliverlight with .net, specifically tutorials and better documentation...

[Ivan Todorovic]

Suggestion for Windows media:

I would like to see some "Automatic codec identification and download" feature in Media Player. Codec authors have to be able to upload their codecs somewhere on Microsoft site after they register 'FourCC code' on IANA site:
http://www.iana.org/assignments/wave-avi-codec-registry

[James Clarke]

Great to read the feedback on xEncoder. You can import PRX files into EE by dropping them in \Expression\Expression Encoder\Profiles. We are hard at work on the next version and will be addressing some of the issues raised here. Thx again James