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

[rich]

I'd like WMP to work more like QT Player: single frame advance, arrow for etc. If they offered features that used to be free from Apple, simple things really copy, paste, trim with save without recompress, plus exports -- weel they'd be able to make millions happy who just learned how to do this with text.

And of coursee, work with FLV, or even everything like Real. One-stop shopping.

[John]

Don't own Expression (yet), so I have no experience, but I'm wondering about DRM policies and options. Historically these have been issues with Media Player

[dunn]

Honestly my biggest problem with Windows Media are all of the compatibility issues. Sure, when set up with the "ideal" configuration I can do some amazing things for clients, but most people don't have perfect setups at home. It feels like a constant battle to ensure my media content will work perfectly for visitors when using many of the Microsoft technologies, which often overrides any of the advantages their amazing work can provide.

[Jeff Parr]

I am not real familiar with Expression Studio, but am a little with Silverlight. I think Microsoft should work on compatibility issues with their users, especially with Live streams. At least in my experience (very little so far) many people cannot view a live Windows Media stream on a "Work" computer, even when their IT department told them it was a Go. Hopefully Silverlight will be able to resolve some of those issues!

[Ed]

I too would like Expression to work with Video and Streaming tech as means of Output Delivery.

[Keith Garbinski]

Silverlight needs to be able to recognize more codecs so it can transcode more encoded videos and not force some one to transcode a video (and in doing so adding artifact) so that it can then again transcode the video to WMV. This is also true for the media player give it the ability to recognize more codecs so don't get the message can't download codec or video is unrecognizable. At my previous job at "C1N" we did alot of transcoding and trying to find the best parameters to get the best encoded video with the least artifacts was hell with so many diffrent encoded videos needing transcoding.

[Ronaldo Thompson]

Product: ease of use.... it’s all about help!

To enable/assist the use of the various tools, process & features - extend the control-tips with a short demo; rich content video 'how-to-do' type examples. This would help in areas where skill set are gray/poor in a product that cuts across the complete web development.

It can be very frustrating when you only need a reminder to help you and you then rely on a predominately text based help system. I find it is always easier to get someone to show you how to do it and this will address this requirement. Maybe even allowing you to make your own help video examples and link them to a control-tip would be worth pursuing.

[Mike Benson]

I am just beginning to learn the possibilities of using Silverlight. I have not used an ASP.NET backend on past projects, and I don't plan to in the near future. I know that other backend server technologies are supported, but most of the tutorials use ASP.NET. I would like to have access to either screencasts or tutorials for using it with JSON and any other server side technologies Microsoft deems worthy.

[R Green]

The content owner needs to be able to swap the DRM profile without totally re-encoding the media asset. not sure with Expression Studio but with Windows Media Encoder some content owners have spent 7 figures + encoding their content and if using a windows DRM workflow, they might be tied to an outside licensing service. if that service goes under, or an alternative pops up, they need to re-encode from scratch. rg

[ed sharpe]

we would love a copy of the encoder for www.glendaledailyplanet.com community news run with scrounged stuff.

It looks like everyone covered codecs and coming in this late I would have to state yea yea yea... but also I would like to see in the encoder a little more automated namer of generating profiles and templates for system parameters.

I would like to See a help site and /or help files with more application examples and ideas.

We are using the old WM encoder and the expressions trial ran out on the demo version... so I guess I am pleading a case of need

thanks ed sharpe
Glendale Daily Planet / KKAT Internet TV

[ed sharpe]

Expression encoder offers great features just having graphical user interfaces to configure everything up would be welcomed... We need it.. it is the future for us. and we would make great use of course of the rest of expression studio... as the poor old www.glendaledailyplanet.com is a creation of frontpage 2000.....