LEADTOOLS Multimedia Introduction

This help file provides .NET platform information for:

LEADTOOLS Multimedia software development toolkits (SDKs)
LEADTOOLS Multimedia software development toolkit add-ons, plug-ins, and modules.

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDK is designed to provide developers with a full range of tools required to create professional, high-quality multimedia applications. With it you can add multimedia functionality such as Capture, Play, and Convert, as well as the latest DirectShow filters and multimedia file support. You can load/convert to and from many common file formats, such as WAV, AVI, WMA, WMV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, OGG, FLV, MKV, WebM, and others. All in all, nearly 100 formats, media types, and subtypes are supported, with full control over compression.

The LEADTOOLS toolkit is flexible and gives you full control over the input, middle and output samples:

Input: Provide your own samples to the conversion / playback, instead of converting a source file. (see the GenAvi demo for an example).
Middle: Get access to each sample being converted for additional processing (see the Callback C++ or DrawOnVideo .NET demo for an example).
Output: Get each output sample and store it as needed (see the Concatenate C++ demo for an example).

Input data can come from any of the following sources:

A media file
A raster file
A stream
The application, one sample at a time
A DirectShow Filter created manually by the application.

Data can be output to:

A media file
A still image file (as either one multi-page file or multiple single-page raster files)
A stream
The application, one sample at a time
A DirectShow filter created programmatically by the application.

The input streams can be very different (MPEG-2 Transport over RTP, UDP or TCP/IP, RTSP server feeding RTP packets, http stream, etc), but as far as your application is concerned, all you have to do is set the stream URL as the source and the toolkit handles the rest. The output is handled in the same way: set the output to a URL and the toolkit will take care of streaming the data.

Add-on modules are available to enhance these capabilities. The LEADTOOLS DVD Module adds functionality for programmatically creating, capturing, authoring, burning, and playing DVD images. The LEADTOOLS Video Streaming Module is perfect for developers who need to implement video conferencing or serve videos on demand, using a standard IIS web server or the Microsoft Media Server. The LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Module can be used to play and process MPEG-2 Transport Streams used by satellites and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). The LEADTOOLS DVR Module can be used to create and play DVR files, and adds DVR support to the Capture, Convert and Play objects.

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia toolkit setup installs source filters, demultiplexers/splitters, processors, codecs/compressors, multiplexers and sinks/writers. Some of these filters are included with the LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDK, while others are included with one or more of the LEADTOOLS add-on modules. In addition, these filters can be licensed individually on an a la carte basis. For more information regarding licensing, refer to the Multimedia Licensing Help.

Key Features

Add-on Modules

Product Demonstrations

Requirements

Environments

Feature Diagrams

Key Features

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia toolkit provides functions that can perform the following tasks:

Multimedia Capture:
- Create applications that can capture from a wide variety of capture devices: native DirectShow devices including DV (with device control), HDTV, Video for Windows (VFW) devices or the computer screen
- Capture audio or video data to a file.
- Capture audio or video data to a sample.
- Capture graphs can be very complex when using DirectShow directly. LEADTOOLS abstracts the process, eliminates the complexity and allows the developer to treat all capture devices in a uniform manner.
Multimedia Playback:
- Create applications that can play all formats supported by DirectShow using the simple-to-use LEADTOOLS playback control.
- Play an audio, video or multimedia sample.
- Play an audio, video or multimedia file.
- Get support for DVD navigation and saving player settings to files and streams.
- Add optional processors during playback for real time processing such as deinterlacing, text or image overlay, cropping, etc..
Multimedia Conversion:
- Add features to your application that allow users to convert to and from AVI, Windows Media content, WAVE, and MPEG1 Audio (MP3) formats. Also allow users to select DV devices for output.
- Convert an audio, video or multimedia file to another type of file.
- Convert an audio, video or multimedia file to a multimedia sample.
- Convert a multimedia sample to another multimedia sample.
- Convert a multimedia sample to a multimedia file.
- Convert using LEADTOOLS processors or your own 3rd party processors.
- Get and modify each video frame during conversion or allow the processor to modify the entire video.
- Automatically correct timestamps to produce correct output files. Converting files requires dealing with many types of files and video/audio codecs. Some of these files or codecs produce bad timestamps, which result in a bad file when you do the conversion using GraphEdit. LEADTOOLS can automatically handle this to produce correct output files.
- Convert files to the proper format for mobile devices. The various popular mobile devices have different requirements for the files that they can play. Finding the correct settings for each device is difficult. LEAD has already researched the correct settings for mobile devices and includes a ConvertToMobile demo with the LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDK which shows you how to easily create files for mobile devices.
Multimedia File Formats:
- Add support for the most popular multimedia formats (AVI, WMV, WAV, MP3, OGG, FLV, F4V (Flash HD), MPEG-1, MPEG-2 Program and Transport streams, MPG, ISO (MP4, 3GPP, AAC, AVC, MOV), PSP thumbnail, LEAD DVR (LBL, LRC) and MPEG-2 DICOM).
Multimedia Compression:
- Add support to your applications for compressing individual samples with any available DirectShow filters (memory to memory).
- Specify which compressors to use or let the toolkit suggest compressors appropriate for the desired file format.
- Design your own target format by picking a sink, multiplexer and compressor(s).
Multimedia Processing:
- Add to your applications the ability to process AVI, Windows Media content, WAVE, and MPEG1Audio (MP3) formats or data as it is captured using DirectShow filters. Nearly 100 formats, media types, and subtypes are supported.
- Use the LEAD Video callback DirectShow filter to use any of the 200+ LEADTOOLS image processing functions to process movies during playback, conversion or capture.
- The Multimedia SDK includes release versions of some LEAD Video/Audio Codecs and filters. Click here for a complete list.
- Also included are evaluation versions of all LEAD Audio/Video Codecs and Filters. Click here for a complete list. For pricing on these DirectShow filter client licenses, contact Sales@LEADTOOLS.com.
DVR:
- Pause live capture or capture continuously to a DVR buffer which contains the last ‘X’ seconds captured.
- Play and convert the DVR buffer while it is being written to (send to a live stream or archive system).
- Save the DVR buffer on multiple hard disks if required.
DVD:
- Author DVD images
- Burn DVD images or regular files to DVD or CD disks
- Convert a DVD to another multimedia file type. NOTE: Due to U.S. and international copyright laws, LEAD requires a special license agreement before providing the customer access to this capability. To see if you are eligible to obtain such a license, contact: licensing@leadtools.com
Multimedia Streaming:
- Stream multimedia content via the web.

The LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Module can be used to play and stream MPEG-2 Transport files and RTSP streams.

The LEADTOOLS Video Streaming Module provides the ability to stream data using a TCP/IP connection for video conferencing, security servers or live presentations. It also offers a DMO codec for use with Microsoft Windows Media Server.

For more information, see the Feature Diagrams below.

Add-on Modules

The following add-on modules are available for the Multimedia SDK:

LEADTOOLS DVD Module

LEADTOOLS Video Streaming Module

LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Module

LEADTOOLS DVR Module

Product Demonstrations

Nearly 100 example programs and executable demos are included in all LEADTOOLS products. The executable demos provide a quick and easy way to evaluate the Multimedia features and performance. Examples include:
- Audio Video Detection demo (AVDetection.exe)
- Audio replace demo (AudioReplace.exe)
- MediaInfo demo (MediaInfo.exe)
Look for these executables in the different Bin subdirectories of the root installation directory for LEADTOOLS (for example, C:\Program Files\LEAD Technologies\LEADTOOLS Multimedia EVAL 1X\Bin\Dotnet\Win32).
The LEADTOOLS DVD Module includes several demo executables. These include:
Media Writer (MediaWriterDemo.exe)
DVD Authoring demo (DVDAuthorDemo.exe)
The LEADTOOLS Video Streaming Module includes several demo executables. These include:
Video Conferencing demos (NetServer.exe and NetClient.exe)
The LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Module includes several demo executables. These include:
MPEG2 Transport demo (MPEG2Transport.exe)
Convert KLV demo (ConvertKLV.exe)
The LEADTOOLS DVR Module includes several demo executables. These include:
DVR demo (DVRDemo.exe)

Requirements

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia toolkit features require that DirectShow 8.0 to be installed. There are also a number of files that you must include when you build your application.

Environments

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia toolkit comes in Win32 and x64 editions. The environments supported depend upon the specific product, platform and function being used. For more information, refer to Supported Platforms / Operating Systems.

Feature Diagrams

Burn a DVD: