^{About the capture buffer}

The capture buffer stores raw video and audio from your capture device, if necessary. This capture buffer stores video data so frames are not lost as video transfers from a capture device and is encoded into Windows Media Format. If your computer has limited system resources, the buffer helps to preserve the quality of your captured video and audio.

Windows Movie Maker displays the estimated amount of time it takes to create the file, which indicates the system’s progress in encoding data from the capture buffer into a Windows Media file. The estimated time depends on your computer system resources, the amount of video and audio stored in the buffer file, and the profile selected for capturing.

After the Windows Media file is created, the buffer file is removed from your computer.

The temporary buffer file for capturing audio and video when using the Video Capture Wizard is created in the same location specified for the captured video file. When capturing an audio narration, the temporary buffer file is stored in the location specified in the Temporary storage box in the Options dialog box. For more information about the temporary storage location, see Setting general options.

The buffer file has a .tmp file name extension.

Related topics

• Understanding capture devices