Configuring Devices
When you set up an encoding session, you must choose the devices that you want to use for encoding. You can use audio devices, video devices, or screen captures. After choosing devices, you can set their properties directly from the encoder. The properties for some of your devices, such as audio and video cards, are global and apply not only to all source groups in your encoding session but to all applications on your computer. (For example, brightness, contrast, capture dimensions, and audio mixer settings.) Screen capture properties apply only to individual source groups and can be different for each source group that is included in your encoding configuration.
You can configure audio and video device properties using the New Session Wizard, the Session Properties dialog box, or the Configure Devices option on the Tools menu. Screen capture properties are not available from the Configure Devices option on the Tools menu.
Note: The devices must already be installed on your computer. You cannot use the encoder to add or remove hardware; use Control Panel instead.
Archiving Content
When running the New Session Wizard, you have the option to archive a live event to a file for later use. You can archive the file to the computer running the encoder or to your Windows Media server. Archiving to the Windows Media server is the best solution when:
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You want the archive to be available immediately for on-demand viewing.
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The resources on your encoding computer are mostly being used for encoding.
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You have more disk space available on your server than on your encoding computer.
If you choose to archive the broadcast, all the sources you used in the broadcast are archived automatically, but archiving all sources is not always desirable. For example, let’s say that one of the sources in your broadcast is an advertisement. To save disk space or to speed up the playback of the archived broadcast, you can archive only the live portion of the broadcast by turning off archiving when the ad is playing. This requires that you either set the archiving option individually for each source in your broadcast in the Session Properties dialog box or turn archiving on and off manually from the Control panel in the main encoder window.
Archiving is only available in conjunction with broadcasting.
To set archive options for each source
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On the Session menu, click Properties.
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Click the Sources tab, and then select the source that you want to archive. You must have configured the source to broadcast through a port and archive to a file.
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Click the Sources tab.
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Click Record to turn on automatic archiving.
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Click Pause or Stop to turn off automatic archiving.
You can override these settings from the encoder Control panel.
To archive files after the broadcast has started
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On the Session menu, click Properties.
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Click the Output tab.
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Select the Archive to file check box to enable archiving.
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Type or browse for the archive file name.
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Click OK. To start archiving immediately, press Record and clear Manual.