Add Silverlight video to a page

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Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering rich interactive applications and video for the web. You can insert Silverlight video into a page, or you can encode other kinds of video into Silverlight and insert the encoded video into a page.

The Insert Silverlight video feature requires Microsoft Expression Encoder, which is installed with Microsoft Expression Web. Expression Encoder is used to encode video and to provide video skins. In addition to the streaming web playback format, Expression Encoder can encode in other formats, including H.264 and WMV for podcasts.

The full version of Expression Web includes a copy of Expression Encoder. If you have acquired Expression Web as a trial version, you can download Expression Encoder from the Expression Community site Ee371198.xtlink_newWindow(en-us,Expression.40).png.

To insert a Silverlight video into a page

  1. In Expression Web, select the location on the page where you want to insert the video.

  2. On the Insert menu, point to Media, and click Encode/Insert Silverlight video.

  3. In the Select a video dialog box, select the video file that you want to add to the page, and then click Open. The Insert Silverlight video dialog box is displayed.

  4. In the Input and Encoding category, set the following options:

    • Input file   Browse to select an input file.

    • Encoding menu   Choose an encoding profile.

      Note

      If the input video file is already compatible with Silverlight, you don't need to encode it; you can use it as is by selecting Source Profile for the Encoding setting. If you want to resize the video or use a different video profile, choose a different Encoding setting.

    • Output file   Type a name and location that is in a folder in the site to make sure that the video will be published.

  5. In the Output category, set the following options:

    • Template   Choose one from this menu if you want to use one. You can only apply one template per job.

    • Preview   See a preview of your template in this area. You can quickly preview all the templates by pressing the UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW keys. To see a full-size preview, click the preview image.

    • Width/Height   Specify the dimensions that you want for the encoded file. Increasing the dimensions of a video image beyond its original size will reduce the video quality. For the best video quality, you should either decrease the image size or keep the image at its original size.

    • Lock Aspect Ratio   Select this option if you want the resized video to retain its original aspect ratio.

  6. Also in the Output category, set the following options:

    • Automatically start video when cued   Select this option if you want the video to begin playing when it is downloaded. If you clear this option, the video will still download and display a frame, but will not begin to play until users start playback.

    • Automatically cue video when page is loaded   Select this option if you want the browser to download and cue a video when the page loads. If you select this option, the browser will download the video and display the first frame. If you do not select this option, the browser does not download and cache the video and, instead, displays a Start button that users must click to download and play the video.

    • Allow closed captions to show   Select this option if you want users to be able to view closed captions.

    • Mute player on start   Select this option if you want the video to start with audio muted. Users can then choose to enable the audio.

    • Display Timecode   Select this option if you want users to see the video timecode.

    • Enable Cached Composition   Select this option to take advantage of a Silverlight feature that enables the caching of visual elements, which can significantly improve performance.

    • Enable Player popout   Select this option to enable users to play your video outside the browser.

    • Enable Player to be run offline   Select this option to enable users to download the video to their computer and play it later.

    • Stretch Mode   Select this option to specify how the browser will stretch the dimensions of the encoded video.

  7. Click OK to begin the video encoding process. The video will be added to your page when encoding is complete.

Tip

For large video files, this encoding process (from inside Expression Web) can take a long time, during which Expression Web will be unavailable. To use Expression Web and encode video at the same time, open Expression Encoder from the Start menu, and encode the video separately while continuing to use Expression Web. When Expression Encoder finishes encoding the video, follow the procedure below and choose Source Profile for the Encoding setting.

See also

Tasks

Adding Silverlight applications

Other resources

Working with video and other media

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