Windows Media 9 Series by Example

Rating:
Summary: The age of high-quality, low-cost desktop video is here
Review: And this is the book to get you off to a running start.

Windows Media 9 is arguably the best engineered bundle of media technologies available to individuals at a reasonable cost. The problem is, Microsoft has a habit of releasing huge bodies of technology and tools with different but overlapping functionality. Though it's great to have so many options, too many choices can be overwhelming to a beginner. There are plenty of ways to go down blind alleys or to waste time using sub-optimal settings when doing media captures or conversions.

This book is exactly what I needed to get over those initial hurdles. With clarity and conciseness it answers:

- What are the moving parts of Windows Media?
- What are their capabilities?
- How do you set them up for high-quality results without a lot of tweaking?
- When can you accept default settings and when do you customize?

With a conversational writing style and step-by-step recipes, the author shows how to "wrangle" media using free or low-cost software from Microsoft and other companies, including some little-known goodies from Microsoft's website.

In the few weeks I've had this book, it has already saved me real time on two projects. Variable-speed playback (which I would not have known was there!) helped me quickly find pertinent quotes in captured audiotapes of a series of interviews. And I was able to instantly hit on settings that gave great quality VHS captures for transfer to DVD without a lot of experimentation.

I use video and audio professionally, but I'm not a professional cinematographer. If you are, of course you will need to go beyond what this book can tell you. That is not a slam on the book. No book can encompass the scope available to a professional artist in any field. But Windows Media 9 Series By Example gave me exactly what I needed to start delivering high-quality video and audio to my clients with little more equipment than an ordinary desktop computer. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The age of high-quality, low-cost desktop video is here
Review: And this is the book to get you off to a running start.

Windows Media 9 is arguably the best engineered bundle of media technologies available to individuals at a reasonable cost. The problem is, Microsoft has a habit of releasing huge bodies of technology and tools with different but overlapping functionality. Though it's great to have so many options, too many choices can be overwhelming to a beginner. There are plenty of ways to go down blind alleys or to waste time using sub-optimal settings when doing media captures or conversions.

This book is exactly what I needed to get over those initial hurdles. With clarity and conciseness it answers:

- What are the moving parts of Windows Media?
- What are their capabilities?
- How do you set them up for high-quality results without a lot of tweaking?
- When can you accept default settings and when do you customize?

With a conversational writing style and step-by-step recipes, the author shows how to "wrangle" media using free or low-cost software from Microsoft and other companies, including some little-known goodies from Microsoft's website.

In the few weeks I've had this book, it has already saved me real time on two projects. Variable-speed playback (which I would not have known was there!) helped me quickly find pertinent quotes in captured audiotapes of a series of interviews. And I was able to instantly hit on settings that gave great quality VHS captures for transfer to DVD without a lot of experimentation.

I use video and audio professionally, but I'm not a professional cinematographer. If you are, of course you will need to go beyond what this book can tell you. That is not a slam on the book. No book can encompass the scope available to a professional artist in any field. But Windows Media 9 Series By Example gave me exactly what I needed to start delivering high-quality video and audio to my clients with little more equipment than an ordinary desktop computer. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction Light on technical how too
Review: I was excited to purchase and read this book considering Microsoft's dismal documentation on how Windows Media 9 encoding works. By reading this book I was a little dissapointed to learn only an introduction into the technical aspects of encoding..It does give you an excellent overview of what this technology is capable of and there are some informative walk throughs...But the real technical encoding parameters are not covered, instead you are left with the author telling you to initially use the wizards then experiment for yourself. This is not what I wanted, I wanted to learn how to maximize my picture and sound quality through tweaking the settings, not the wizards which are based on very general conditions of your video and sound.
I highly recommend this book in any case but don't expect to walk away an expert nor to truly take advantage of Windows Media Encoding after reading this book. You will however have a much clearer understanding of available tools and a clearer picture on how it all works together.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Resource
Review: If you've been waiting for an all-in-one book that leads you into the new world of Microsoft's Media 9--and all of its features--then Nels Johnson's book is the one for you.

Lucidly written, but never dry, the author walks you though all the new features of WM9, including how to use it with Microsoft's improved Movie Maker 2, how to encode your movies (or your songs) for delivery over the Web (as progressive download, for example, a much needed feature in my opinion, as a QuickTime user), or for delivery on CD and DVD and for handheld devices. Numerous examples and suggestions are provided for encoding.

Also, I was particularly pleased with the chapter on protecting your movies with Microsoft's Digital Rights Management software. Trying to get the lowdown on this from Microsoft's own site is nightmarish, but the author carefully describes all of the steps involved if you're serious about protecting your digital content.

This book belongs on the shelf of any serious digital video producer.