DirectShow
DirectShow is currently included with
the Windows Operating System and
Internet Explorer. Additionally, DirectShow can be
downloaded directly from Microsoft.
Q:
Why use LEADTOOLS Multimedia and not use the DirectShow
SDK directly (after all it is free) to save some money?
A: DirectShow is indeed free and powerful, but very complex.
Much time will be required to write a robust capture
application by calling DirectShow directly. Although,
you will save money by not purchasing a toolkit, you
will spend much more money on the time required to
write the code from scratch to make the application
work with various different capture cards. No two
capture devices are exactly the same, and it will
take time to write the code that will work with every
device. With a LEADTOOLS Multimedia product you avoid
the complexities of writing an application that calls
DirectShow directly.
What Issues
Does DirectShow Address?
- Large amounts of data must be processed
very quickly.
- The audio, video and any additional
streams must all be synchronized to start and stop
at the same time and play at the same rate.
- Streams can come from many various
sources, including local media files, computer networks,
broadcasts, video cameras and other media devices.
- Streams come in a variety of formats,
such as Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI), Advanced
Streaming Format (ASF), and Motion Picture Experts
Group (MPEG).
- An application developer has
no way of knowing what hardware devices will be
installed on the end-user's system.
How does DirectShow Address
The Issues?
To achieve the throughput necessary
for streaming video and audio, DirectShow uses DirectDraw®
and DirectSound® to render data efficiently to
the system's sound and graphics cards. Synchronization
is achieved by encapsulating the multimedia data in
time-stamped media samples. To handle the variety
of sources, formats, and hardware devices, DirectShow
uses a modular architecture in which operating system
components called filters can be mixed and matched
to provide support for many different scenarios.
DirectShow includes filters that support
codecs written for the Audio Compression Manager (ACM)
and Video Compression Manager (VCM) interfaces.
DirectShow enables applications to play
files and streams from various sources, including
local files and remote files on a network. DirectShow
has native compressors and decompressors for some
file formats, and many third-party hardware and software
decoders are compatible with DirectShow. In addition,
DirectShow supports legacy Video for Windows codecs
based on the Video Compression Manager (VCM) and Audio
Compression Manager (ACM) interfaces. Playback makes
full use of DirectDraw hardware acceleration and DirectSound
capabilities when the hardware supports it.
Click
here for LEADTOOLS Evals including DirectShow
Video for Windows®,
DirectShow®, DirectX®, DirectDraw® and
DirectSound® are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corp.
LEADTOOLS Sales:
704-332-5532 | sales@leadtools.com
LEADTOOLS Support: 704-372-9681 | support@leadtools.com
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