WMV Settings Dialog Box

The WMV Settings dialog box lets you set the video and audio settings when exporting a Windows Media Video movie.

The WMV Settings dialog box is accessed through the Export to Movie dialog box. It can also be accessed from the Export to EDL/AAF/XML dialog box. In the latter case, it will not have sound options, since audio is not exported into video files when exporting EDL/AAF/XML sequences.

NOTE The option to export to Windows Media Video is only available on Windows.
Parameter Description
Video

Variable Bit Rate Quality

Lets you choose a quality setting ranging from 5 to 100 for the video stream. The higher the quality of the export, the larger the resulting file.
Sound

Profile

Lets you choose among preset combinations of audio sample rates, sample sizes and channel modes for the audio stream:

  • Sample rate: Available sample rates are 8000 Hz, 16000 Hz, 22050 Hz and 44100 Hz. The default setting is 22050 Hz. It is best to export your audio at a rate that matches the rate of your original sound files. For example, if your file has an audio sample rate of 48000 Hz and you choose a sample rate of 22050 Hz, the sound will play at the same speed, but higher frequencies will be missing, making it sound muffled. For reference, the standard sound quality is 44000 kHz for films, and 48000 kHz for DVD. Lower rates are liable to impact the quality of your movie's audio track negatively, but they can be useful if disk space or download speed is critical.
  • Sample size: Also known as Bit Depth, this determines the amount of precision used to record each wavelength in the audio track. The standard size is 16-bit. If you choose 8-bit, the amount of disk space the audio track of your movie file requires is halved, but the audio quality will be significantly lower.
  • Channel mode: Stereo sound has a separate audio track for the left and the right speakers, allowing to make the origin of each sound realistically match the origin of their corresponding action. If you choose Mono, the audio track in the exported movie file may use less disk space, but both the left and right channels will be merged into a single track.
  • NOTE Exporting in 8-bit audio requires Apple QuickTime to be installed.