Media Content panel

The Media Content panel lists all the source media that you import. This media list represents the files that Microsoft Expression Encoder will process when you initiate encoding. This collective list is called a job. You can save this list as an individual job file. You can also initiate the encoding process from this panel. You can add additional clips to the original source clips, but those added clips are displayed in the Clips panel.

The Media Content panel

	Items tab   Click this tab to view all the files that you have imported for the present job.
	Activity Log tab   Click this tab to check the details and status of each import. The log also displays any errors in loading user static assets, such as user profiles and templates.
	Import button   Click this button to import your media.
	Encode button   After you have modified your video and added templates, trailers, and overlays, click this button to begin encoding your video or audio and generating the Microsoft Silverlight playing experience.
	Screen Capture button   Click this button to open the screen capture utility.
	Live Encoding button   Click this button to switch to Live Encoding mode. A new workspace appears where you can then build, encode, and broadcast a live media stream.
	A/B Compare button   Click this button to switch to A/B Compare mode. This mode enables you to compare a section of original video to multiple profiles, to best determine your needs for file size versus quality. Better quality usually means larger file sizes.
	Video information bar   View key video properties here.

In addition, the Video information bar includes the following columns:

• Thumbnail   Displays a frame from the image.

• Name   Displays the file name of the video.

• File type   Displays whether the file contains audio, video, or both.

• Status   Displays "Ready" to indicate that the file awaits encoding. During encoding, this column displays the time remaining for the encoding to finish. Once encoding is completed, this column displays "Encode complete."

• Source   Displays the path of the original video.

• Target   Displays the file name of the encoded video.

• Source duration   Displays the duration of the source file.

• Source file size   Displays the size of the source file.

• Source dimensions   Displays the width and height of the source video.

• Source frame rate   Displays the source video frame rate.

• Encode started   Displays the date and time that the last encoding began.

• Encode stopped   Displays the date and time that the last encoding ended.

Tip:
You can rearrange the order of the columns in the Media Content panel by dragging the column name to a new location in the row.