ltmmConvertCtrl.SetPreferredFilter Method

 

Syntax

object.SetPreferredFilter(FilterType As Long, Val As String)

Remarks

Sets a preferred filter.

FilterType

Value that indicates the filter type. For a list of possible values, refer to ltmmConvert_PreferredFilter Constants.

Val

String that has the following possible values:

For a list of possible predefined values, refer to ltmmFilter Constants.

Remarks

By default, the toolkit uses filters according to the default DirectShow mechanism, which assigns a merit to each filter. The filters with the highest merits are tried first. If they fail, the filters with a lower merit are tried next until a combination of filters is found that can handle the graph. However, sometimes 3rd party filters get installed on some computers with a high merit and are used instead of the filters you shipped with your application. And unexpected problems can occur if these filters are not working properly. The SetPreferredFilter method allows you to control which filters are used in your application. You can decide to use a specific decoder or demultiplexer, or you can choose to use only the LEAD filters.

DirectShow filters have a friendly name and a display name. The friendly name is easy to remember and is usually displayed by GraphEdit or other filter enumeration utilities. But there can be more than one filter with the same friendly name, so it is safer to use the display name, since no two filters have the same display name.

Display names for software filters have the following format: @device:sw:GUID\GUID.

For example Microsoft’s “MPEG-2 Splitter” has:

friendly name: MPEG-2 Splitter

display name: @device:sw:{083863F1-70DE-11D0-BD40-00A0C911CE86}\\{3AE86B20-7BE8-11D1-ABE6-00A0C905F375}.

The display name for a particular filter can be obtained from the "DirectShow Filter List Utility" shipped with the toolkit. See Examples Programs and Demos for Win32/x64 for more details.

If the FilterType argument is equal to ltmmConvert_PreferredFilter_Generic, then the possible values for Filter are: ltmmFilter_LEADDefault or ltmmFilter_DontCare.

If ltmmFilter_LEADDefault is specified, then the LEAD default decoders and demultiplexers will be set for ALL of the values listed in ltmmConvert_PreferredFilter.

If ltmmFilter_DontCare is specified, then the internal list of the preferred filters will be cleared and the DirectShow filter merit determines which filters will be used.

Use the ltmmFilter_XXX constants whenever possible. See  ltmmFilter Constants. for a list of predefined values.

Platforms

Win32, x64

See Also

Elements:

ltmmConvertCtrl Object

Topics:

Multimedia Properties, Methods and Events