Set Pre-Processing options

Before you encode a project, you can apply high-quality adjustments to the video and audio portions of your job. For video, you can apply deinterlacing and resizing adjustments, and for audio, you can normalize and change the amplitude of audio levels.

In many cases, the source video that you want to encode for web playback was recorded with interlaced frames and recorded in the standard DV dimensions. Often, compressing and resizing that interlaced digital content creates artifacts when the video plays back on the computer. In some cases, if your source footage was originally either a film or recorded at the film frame rate of 24 frames per second, 3:2 pulldown was applied. Microsoft Expression Encoder offers a high-quality video preprocessing tool that can eliminate the interlacing artifacts or, if applicable, 3:2 pulldown, and also enable you to choose a resizing method specifically suited to the size and type of video that you are encoding.

For audio, Expression Encoder includes a normalization tool with a sophisticated algorithm that you can use to lessen the difference between loud and soft passages in your audio track, making the audio levels more uniform. If the entire file is recorded at a low or high level, you can use the level adjustment slider to increase or decrease the level.

Note

You can apply video preprocessing options only to your main video, not to any video clips that you add to your main video. If you want to process additional video clips, you must do so in a separate job, before importing. However, audio preprocessing options will be applied to both your main video and any additional clips.

To apply video and audio Pre-Processing options

1. Click the Enhance tab. If you can't see the Enhance tab, on the Window menu, click Enhance.

2. Expand the Pre-Processing section.

3. In the Video category, do any of the following:

   • On the Deinterlacing menu, click a deinterlacing option. Hover over each option for a description of its function.

   • On the Resize Quality menu, click a resizing algorithm. For the highest-quality algorithm when decreasing your video size, click Bicubic. For the highest-quality algorithm when increasing your video size, click Lanczos. You can experiment with the others to see whether they may better match your encoding scenario.

4. In the Audio section, do any of the following:

   • Select Volume Leveling to apply normalization to the audio track.

   • Drag the Volume slider to the left or right, respectively, to decrease or increase the overall volume level of the audio track.

   • Select Enable SRS 5.1 to convert an audio stream from multiple audio channels (more than two) to two SRS 5.1 surround sound channels. SRS is a high-quality audio encoding solution for streaming surround sound in any multi-channel audio file encoded at or above 96 kpbs.

5. If you want to save your settings as a preset, on the Pre-processing options menu , click Save panel as preset.

Note

You can also apply a crop in the Pre-Processing section. For more information about how to crop videos, see Crop video.

See also

Tasks

Apply presets

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