Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 VCM

Video and audio codecs are necessary on all systems if one is to play movies and listen to music, or in case multimedia editing is to be performed on the computer. Compressing video streams in order to achieve the best quality also requires some specialized components, just like Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 VCM.

This compressor makes it possible for container files other than AVI (audio-video interleaved) to be processed and the driver included in this particular package will work under Windows Multimedia Video Compression Manager (VCM).

All the configurations can be carried out through the properties dialog box of Windows Media Video 9 VCM. Thus, the encoding modes can be selected and customized. There are 5 such modes available, namely One-pass CBR, Two-pass CBR, One-pass VBR, Two-pass VBR and Peak-constrained two-pass VBR (or two-pass bit-rate VBR).

When it comes to the quality level of the stream to be compressed, only with variable bit-rates can it be adjusted. The values range from 0 to 100, the latter being the highest possible level of video quality.

The performance of the processing job can also be subject to customization, thanks to the dedicated function Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 VCM comes with. More precisely, there is a performance slider that can be used to choose the optimal compromise between speed in processing and output quality.

In the same dialog box of Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 VCM is available a 'Pre-processing' area where several options can be, in turn, customized. Thus, one can set the desired options for frame cropping and resizing, framerate downsampling as well as for the 'Source mode'.

Even though there is no dedicated GUI to allow all users to work with Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 VCM in the 'classical' manner they are used to, the compressor, which is not a regular application by all means, is clearly designed for specialists and advanced users.