Posted by: kurtsh | January 16, 2007

INFO: Editing LiveMeeting 2005 recordings – “trimming off the beginning & end”

Have you ever wanted to "trim the beginning & end" off of a LiveMeeting 2005 recording?

PROBLEM: 
The challenge is that LiveMeeting videos are specifically encoded using:
– Windows Media Audio 9 Voice (8 kbps, 8 kHz, mono)
– Windows Media Video 9 Screen Capture
…this is optimal for desktop screen captures & mono-voice recordings.

When you edit using Windows Movie Maker, it reencodes the media file to:
– Windows Media Audio 9.1 (32kbps, 32kHz, stereo)
– Windows Media Video 9.1
…this is optimal for live action video & CD quality audio.

Obviously, live action video & CD quality audio takes up tremendously more storage than the other.

SOLUTION:
The easiest solution for these folks is to use the Windows Media File Editor, which is part of the "Windows Media Encoder 9.0" installation.  This is a small installation of a very cool set of utilities for editing and converting Windows Media content – particularly LiveMeeting 2005 content.  DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

WINDOWS MEDIA FILE EDITOR:
Once you download and install the encoder, a START–>PROGRAMS entry will be created called Windows Media.  In there there is a program called "Windows Media File Editor" which you can run located at "C:Program FilesWindows Media ComponentsEncoderwmeditor.exe".   

This tool, once run will allow you to File–>Open the LiveMeeting 2005 file which should be a file with a .WMV extension.  Once loaded, you will see and interface very similar to Windows Media Player (Play, Stop, audio level, etc.), a place that shows  where all the markers are in the video stream, and a place to "mark in" and "mark out" specific time segments of the clip.

Simply mark in and mark out the times that you want, and the FILE–>SAVE AS & INDEX and you’ll find that the file saves VERY QUICKLY because no conversion and no reencoding needs to take place.

EDITING PROPERTIES:
The Windows Media File Editor does more than just "trim" media files.  It can also edit the attributes of the file.  Have you ever noticed that the bottom of the Windows Media Player shows details about the video/audio you’re viewing like "Author", "Title", "Copyright", "Description", etc.? 

These are Attributes or Properties that you can edit using the Windows Media File Editor.  Click on the "Attributes" tab and you can change everything from the "Author" of the file to the Audio Dynamic range that the listener can hear.  This last Attribute can distort  the audio if you minimize it but it can also shrink your file.  It can also grow the filesize if you do other wise.

MULTIPLE LANGUAGES?
Did you know that you can take an existing LiveMeeting presentation, create a new Foreign Language audio track for it, and integrate it into the existing file?  Or maybe you want to create a new media file using a higher fidelity audio track, or a better video recording? 

The Windows Media Stream Editor allows you to do this.  This is another of the Windows Media Encoding tools that comes with the Encoder 9.0 installation and is located in the same START-PROGRAMS location as the Windows Media File Editor.

MORE INFORMATION
If you’re interested in even more information about these tools, check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/features.aspx 

There’s information on how to:

If you find this interesting, I strongly encourage you to get a copy of the Windows Media Resource Kit which is a great reference for EVERYTHING related to Windows Media files – including those generated by LiveMeeting 2005.

IF FOR SOME REASON you need to reencode, that’s what the "Windows Media Encoder 9.0" tool is for but that’s much more complicated and I won’t go into that now…

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