LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDK has made a name for itself by offering high level controls that take the complexity out of developing DirectShow and Media Foundation applications. Most core operations such as conversion, capture and playback can be done with only a few lines of code. In addition to the high level features, LEADTOOLS is flexible enough for any advanced application with more difficult scenarios and still offers as much or as little control as desired over the graphs and topologies under the hood.

The ConvertCtrl is a perfect example of this. By setting a source file, destination file and format you can make an audio/video conversion application in minutes. Developers who wish to dive deeper can supply their own media samples and process the conversion frame by frame.

Microsoft Media Foundation is rapidly gaining ground as more and more people adopt the latest Windows Operating Systems. Naturally, it is growing in popularity among our customers since we released our Media Foundation SDK earlier this year.

LEADTOOLS includes high level controls for handling all of the core Multimedia functionality such as playback, capture and conversion. More advanced applications often implement transforms (previously known as filters in DirectShow) to add special processing to the audio and video streams. One of the most popular and flexible transforms in LEADTOOLS is the Video Callback Transform, which gives you direct access to the raw video data. With that data, and one of LEADTOOLS raster, document or medical imaging SDKs, the possibilities are quite endless.

Today, we uploaded a new setup for our LEADTOOLS Multimedia products. This update adds new features and enhancements to several technologies including H.264 and Media Foundation. However, the big push for this release started with all of the positive feedback and requests we have received for the Media Streaming Server. Just a few months ago we added live streaming capabilities, and our developers have even further expanded that functionality, making it easier to create and configure, enabling a high level control over server resources and bandwidth consumption.

Streaming audio/video multimedia content takes a prominent place in today's culture. It is everywhere from home entertainment services, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), security and surveillance systems, and even baby monitors. What you might not know is that one format powers a large majority of those systems and products. MPEG-2 Transport Stream is at the heart of many streaming technologies you use and benefit from on a daily basis.

Naturally, LEADTOOLS has some powerful SDK features that can help you implement and take advantage of the many benefits of MPEG-2 Transport Stream. Check out this month's white paper for a detailed look into the world of MPEG-2 Transport Stream and how to use it in your application to send and receive live audio/video streams with KLV metadata, DVR and more.

MPEG-2 Transport Stream is a significant feature in our Multimedia offering and covers a wide variety of industries and applications including UAV, digital television, and security. Today, we published an update that includes the ability to use push mode to capture and play from devices sending hardware-compressed MPEG-2 Transport Streams. This heavily requested feature gives developers excellent performance when interfacing with modern MPEG-2 Transport cameras and capture devices since the source stream can go directly to the LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Demultiplexer rather than forcing decompression or being limited to completed .m2ts files.

Additional Multimedia Updates

In addition to MPEG-2 Transport Stream, here are few more notable updates in today's Multimedia Release: