BB TestAssistant can export to the Windows Media Video (WMV) format. PCs running Windows 2000 or XP should be able to play movies in this format.
Note: the export to WMV function requires that Windows Media Player v9 (or newer) is installed.
How to export to WMV format:
On the Player main menu, select the Export to WMV item on the File menu. Or, select the button on the file toolbar.
Set the export options. See below for more details.
Give the WMV file a name and click Save to create the export file.
WMV export options are displayed on 3 tabs, breaking them into advanced and basic settings.
Basic Settings
These are shown on the 'Basic' tab of the WMV export options dialog.
Frame rate. The higher the frame rate the smoother the movie will look. However, a higher frame rate means that the movie file size will be larger.
Scaling. Select a value less than 100% to reduce the movie dimensions.
Highlight mouse clicks. Select this option to emphasize mouse clicks in the movie via a cursor animation.
Add 'created by unregistered copy' message. Select this option to add a bitmap to the top right corner of the movie that states that the movie was exported by an unregistered copy of BB TestAssistant.
Autoscroll
The movie can be trimmed to a smaller size and automatically scrolled during playback to keep the mouse cursor in the movie frame. For more help see Autoscrolling exported movies.
Advanced Audio and Video Settings
These additional options are on the 'Video codec' and 'Audio codec' tabs of the WMV export options dialog.
Video codec options:
Codec. Most Windows PCs should be able to play movies encoded using the Windows Media Video series 9 codecs, but certain olders PCs might have problems. For that reason, you can select older WMV codecs via this control - see WMV codec compatibility for more details. The Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec was developed by Microsoft specifically for the purpose of encoding screen capture movies and will usually give the smallest file size. However, the quality will be lower than that seen with normal Windows Media Video 9.
Quality. This is a number from 0-100 which determines the quality of the final video output. A higher value means higher quality but increased file size.
Passes. Selecting two passes will generally result in higher quality but takes longer to export.
Variable bit rate. You may want to uncheck this box and encode at constant bit rate if you are exporting WMV files intended to be streamed over the internet or are targetting older PCs and devices. Usually a variable bit rate will result in higher quality.
Bitrate. The bitrate determines the quality of the movie: the higher the bitrate the better the quality. It can be useful in controlling the export of files intended to be streamed over the internet: 250kbs is a value generally recommended for files to be streamed by broadband users and 30kbs for files to be streamed via dial-up connections.
Audio codec options:
Codec. As for the video options, Windows Media Audio series 9 codecs should give the best results. The older codecs are provided in case you encounter problems when playing back the movie on certain older PCs. See WMV codec compatibility for more details.
Format. The sound 'format' is a combination of the sampling rate and whether it is in mono or stereo. The higher the sampling rate the better the quality but the larger the exported movie file. Selecting mono instead of stereo will decrease the movie size but only include one channel of sound instead of two.
Passes. As with the video settings, 2 passes generally results in better quality but takes longer to export.
Variable bit rate. As for the video settings: using variable bit rate will result in higher quality for most purposes, but is less compatible with older media players than constant bit rate encoding.
Bitrate/Quality. A higher value results in better quality but a larger exported movie file.