With MIX08 many things were announced, IE8 beta, Silverlight 2, but what I was expecting to hear something about Expression Encoder, some feature? some date? No, an Expression Encoder 2 beta out!! :)
You can see a fully article with all new stuff on Expression Encoder team blog. Great. 
New features resume:
- Modifying cuts
- New VC-1 codecs
- Intelligent encoding
- Edit Silverlight templates in Expression blend 2
- Multi-core/multiprocessor support
- Control Silverlight template playback parameters
- Animated overlays
- High-quality preprocessing tools
- Interactive Timeline display
- Object model
- Server-side encoding