Today we released several updates to LEADTOOLS Multimedia Version 19. In particular, the H.264 encoder and RTSP Source filter are faster and offer greater flexibility.

• NVIDIA CUDA hardware acceleration (NVENC) for H.264 encoder — NVIDIA's latest graphics cards and video drivers include even better hardware acceleration than the previous generation (NVCUVENC). H.265 support for NVENC acceleration is currently in beta and LEADTOOLS is excited about adding this support to our H.265 encoder in the future.
• Automatic timestamp drift correction for AAC and H.264 encoders — An incredibly useful feature for the TV industry. With video capture and DVR applications often running for days, timestamps can begin to drift resulting in out of sync audio and video streams. LEADTOOLS' AAC and H.264 encoders can now automatically detect and correct these problems when they arise in the capture hardware.
• RTSP Source Filter callback and MaxTimeout parameter — When RTSP streams encounter connection and load-time issues, both of these features make it possible for the client to abort the process manually or after a specified amount of time.
• YUV color space support in Video Callback Filter — Customers using the Video Callback filter can now work directly with YUV data without converting it to RGB.

All of these new features are freely available to those evaluating and who have already purchased LEADTOOLS Version 19. All you need to do is download the latest setup from our website!

A new, major version of LEADTOOLS is right around the corner. Version 19 is packed full of incredible Document, Medical and Multimedia Imaging technology with many new features and enhancements across the board. Developers can do more than ever before with LEADTOOLS V19.

Document Imaging

• Document and image viewers for all platforms
  • New SVG engine for smooth scrolling and zooming of documents
  • Search text and use annotations on any format
  • Multi-page lazy loading for large documents
• Convert PDF & Office formats at 100% accuracy without the need for OCR
• Improved OCR accuracy for all languages including East Asian
• New barcode types: Aztec, MaxiCode & Micro QR
• Structured and unstructured forms recognition and processing with OEM-ready forms applications (checks, passports, driver licenses, invoices)
• PDF and Office format viewing, editing and conversion: convert hundreds of different file types to PDF, DOC/DOCX, RTF, HTML, XPS and more
• Powerful PDF SDK is feature packed and includes page manipulation, optimize PDF, bookmarks and metadata; create PDF/A files, PDF annotations, image extraction and more
• Zero-footprint HTML5/JavaScript UI controls & web services
• Image cleanup and pre-processing

Medical Imaging

• Comprehensive DICOM SDK supporting the latest specifications
• PACS client and server components
• Optional third-party cloud storage integration in the DICOM Storage Server
• New HL7 SDK with decoders, listener service and MWL integration
• Redesigned, highly customizable, cloud-enabled HTML5 / JavaScript zero-footprint medical viewer
• Rich Client Medical Web Viewer (IE only)
• Medical image processing
• Medical annotations and collaboration tools
• 3D volume construction and advanced visualization
• Specialized 8-16 bit grayscale image display
• OEM-ready applications with source code

Multimedia

• H.265 with 4K and 8K ultra-high-definition
• Capture, convert, stream and play audio and video
• Hundreds of formats and codecs for DirectShow and Media Foundation
  • MPEG-2 Transport Stream, H.264, MPEG-4 & more
• KLV metadata
• UAV and UAS
• Audio and video processing filters and transforms including overlays and motion detection
• DICOM reading and writing

Imaging

• Hundreds of file and image formats for loading, saving and compression
• Thousands of image processing algorithms
• New Image Viewer control for all platforms
• Scan with TWAIN from the web

More to come in the following weeks! Sign up for our newsletter to get all the latest information regarding LEADTOOLS Version 19 sent directly to your inbox.

This month's white paper is an extremely practical one. In fact, we even had a few conversations with customers at last week's HIMSS conference about this very subject. Document archival has been around for quite a while now, but as archives grow and systems become more spread out and the client device ecosystem is much more diverse, standardizing your document archival system is becoming critical.

If you have need for end-to-end PDF and PDF/A functionality including OCR, Virtual Printing, HTML5 viewing and more, you will benefit greatly from our March white paper!

We're going back to back with Multimedia Version 18 articles on The CodeProject. After showing how to create a powerful RTSP Server with only a few lines of code last month, now we're illustrating how easy it is to implement Microsoft Media Foundation Capture and Convert functionality with LEADTOOLS Version 18.

LEADTOOLS has a rich history of simplifying DirectShow application deployment with its award-winning Multimedia SDKs. Version 18 picks builds on that reputation and provides the same programmer-friendly interface and powerful features that developers can rely upon for years to come as Microsoft Media Foundation becomes more and more popular.

Now that Version 18 has been out for a little over a month, we’ve received a lot of feedback about some of the features our customers are really excited about. This week I'm jumping into LEADTOOLS Multimedia Version 18, which is headlined by the addition of Media Foundation support and a new RTSP Server.

Media Foundation

LEAD Technologies has a strong record of keeping pace with the latest development platforms and technologies. Adding support for Microsoft Media Foundation is much more than just keeping up, it’s also a reflection of our commitment to making difficult development projects simple. In the same way that LEADTOOLS simplified and abstracted DirectShow application development, LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDKs now offer the same benefits for the new Microsoft Media Foundation framework with new components and transforms. Below is a list of controls, processors, codecs, multiplexers and demultiplexers that are supported in Microsoft Media Foundation: