The Video Save Options dialog box is shown above. The Video Editor tab allows you to select options that are specific to Media Studio Pro, such as whether you would like to preview the video immediately after saving it. The General tab is used to set the size and playback speed of your video. The Advanced tab is used when you want to control video quality and file size based on the speed of the hardware that will play your video. The Compression tab enables the selection of video codecs and allows you to set how much compression you would like applied by the codec. The Cropping tab is used to crop your video as it's being saved. For the purpose of this article, we'll focus on compression options, the remaining options may be left at their default settings.

Compression
The Compression drop down list box is used to select a codec. For distributing video from a Web site or via e-mail, it's generally best to stick with one of the following codecs, due to the fact that they're installed on just about every PC (and many Macs as well):

Cinepak Codec by Radius: Cinepak is perhaps the safest choice of codecs for general usage. Cinepak's main advantages are that the codec is already installed on most machines, and that it can play video reliably even on older machines such as Intel 486 computers. Its disadvantage is that, when compared to other codecs, it tends to produce lower quality and larger file sizes .

Indeo Video: Indeo Video was created by Intel and has shipped with Windows since 1994 and with Apple's QuickTime since 1998, making it another of the most widely available codecs. The 3.2 and 5.06 versions are the most widely distributed. Indeo's advantages, particularly in version 5.06, include strong compression and preservation of video quality. It's also more demanding on processors than Cinepak, so it's not the ideal format to use if you expect your viewers to be using 486 processors. Quality The quality option allows you to balance file size and video quality, similar to the way in which you can set quality options for JPG images. It's best to start with a quality setting of about 80 to 90, and take advantage of the preview button to make certain that your video is not losing too much quality. While in preview mode you can check the "preview with specified frame size" for a full size preview window. Key Frame For Every _____ FramesMost video compression schemes use a delicate balance of key frames and delta frames to create a video file. Key frames contain all of the information required to display the frame, while delta frames require data from previously viewed key frames in order to be displayed. You can think of delta frames as being similar to frames in a GIF animation in which redundant pixels have been removed: Although the frames will display correctly when the animation is played, if you were to look at the animation in an editor such as GIF Animator, you would see that blocks of pixels have been removed to improve compression. All videos contain at least one key frame in the first frame of the file. The remaining number of key frames will serve to improve the quality of the video, but will also increase file size. As a general rule, you should try using 1 key frame for every 1 second of video. Using this formula, a video that plays 15 frames per second ("frames per second" is set in the "General" tab) will have a key frame every 15 frames. You can improve quality by increasing the number of key frames. Keep in mind that this is accomplished by lowering the "Key Frame For Every _____ Frames" setting. You can improve compression by decreasing the number of key frames per second, which is done by raising the "Key Frame For Every _____ Frames" setting. Data TypeFor the codecs described above, the data type will always be 24-bit RGB, the standard data type for modern computer monitors. Note that if you're creating a low color video, such as text moving across a solid color background, you can choose the "Microsoft RLE" codec, a widely distributed codec that conserves file space by using 8-bit color.

Palette
Palette options are only available with the 8-bit data type, since higher color counts do not require a predefined palette. This option is very similar to the palette option used when creating a GIF file. An optimized palette provides the best color reproduction, while the
"6-6-6 (levels)" option provides a video equivalent of the "web-safe" palette.

Audio
Using audio in a video file always increases file size, sometimes dramatically. This makes selecting audio options an important factor in keeping file size to a minimum. If your video file will be delivered via a Web page or e-mail, try the default audio selection of "8,000 Hz, 8-bit, Mono". Any increase in the frequency (the "8,000 Hz" in this example) or the bit count (the "8-bit" in this example), may result in both an improvement in quality and an increase in file size. Changing from mono to stereo essentially doubles the amount of space needed to store your file's audio, so stereo should only be used if absolutely necessary. For improved voice quality, instead of switching to stereo, try raising the frequency to 16,000 Hz. For improved music quality, MP3 quality audio is available by clicking the format drop-down list box, and selecting "MPEG Layer 3".