Windows Media 9 Series by Example [Paperback]

Nels Johnson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1578202043 | ISBN-13: 978-1578202041 | Publication Date: September 2003 | Edition: 1

Videographers can harness the potential that WM9 offers to deliver high-quality video and multimedia via DVD and over the Internet. Illustrated examples and tutorials demonstrate the basic functionality of WM9 as well as the options available to advanced users who wish to design new applications with the software development kit. Professional videographers will find this book to be a practical way to learn how to set up players, encoders, and servers and how to capture and compress video so they can use WM9 with the applications they use every day, including Powerpoint, Premiere, After Effects, and Avid.

Get insights on how to most effectively set up the Windows Media 9 Series player, encoder, and server, plus tutorials on using established programs and peripheral devices to create, import, and output WM9 files, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nels Johnson is president of Download Recordings, Inc., a desktop media consulting and production company, and has taught desktop video and multimedia at the University of California and College of Marin. He is the author of How to Digitize Video, Web Developer's Guide to Multimedia and Video, and Web Developer's Guide to Multicasting, as well as a contributing editor and feature writer for DV magazine. Mr. Johnson served on the independent team (the San Francisco Canyon Company) that developed the original version of QuickTime for Windows for Apple Computer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578202043
• ISBN-13: 978-1578202041
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,105,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Computers & Technology > Graphic Design > Web Design > Web Graphics

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction Light on technical how too, September 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Windows Media 9 Series by Example (Paperback)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Resource, January 27, 2004

By 

John Farrell (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Windows Media 9 Series by Example (Paperback)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars The age of high-quality, low-cost desktop video is here, December 8, 2003

By 

David Burns (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Windows Media 9 Series by Example (Paperback)

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.