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Introduction

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

LEADTOOLS Multimedia C API

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia C API toolkit is flexible. It 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. For an example, refer to the GenAvi demo.
Middle: Access each sample being converted for additional processing. For an example, refer to the Callback C++ demo.
Output: Get each output sample and store it as needed. For an example, refer to the Concatenate C++ demo.

Input data can come from 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 a one multipage file or multiple single-page raster files)
A stream
The application, one sample at a time
A DirectShow filter created manually by the application.

Input streams can be very different (MPEG-2 Transport over UDP, TCP/IP, RTSP server feeding RTP packets, HTTP stream, etc.) However, as far as your application is concerned, all you have to do is set the stream's 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.

Key Features

Tasks

DirectShow Filters

Product Demonstrations

Add-on Modules

Requirements

Environments

Feature Diagrams

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia API provides dynamic link library (DLL) 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, eliminating the complexity and allowing 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 for real-time processing (for example, deinterlacing, text or image overlay, cropping, etc.) during playback.
Multimedia Conversion
- Add features so your users can select DV devices for output; and convert to and from AVI, Windows Media content, WAVE, and MPEG1 Audio (MP3) formats.
- 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 demonstrates 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)
  - MPEG-2 DICOM
  - MPEG-2 Transport 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 one or more compressors.
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.
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.
- Use the LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Module to play and stream MPEG-2 Transport files and RTSP streams.
- Use the LEADTOOLS Streaming Module 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.

DirectShow Filters

The LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDK includes full or evaluation versions * of all DirectShow Filters. Filters encompass encoders, decoders, multiplexers, demultiplexers, sources, and sinks.

The evaluation download also includes evaluation versions * of the DVD writer, DVD burner, MPEG-1 multiplexer, MPEG-2 multiplexer, ISO multiplexer/demultiplexer, Screen Capture filter, Network filters (source, mux, sink, and protocol manager) (TCP/IP, UDP, RTSP), DICOM medical toolkit filters, and more.

Refer to LEADTOOLS DirectShow Filters for a complete listing of available DirectShow filters. Refer to the Multimedia Product Comparison Chart to see which licensed filters are included with the various LEADTOOLS products.

* For pricing of filter and codec client licenses, contact sales@LEADTOOLS.com.

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. Look for these executables in the different Bin subdirectories of the root installation directory for LEADTOOLS (for example, C:\LEADTOOLS 20\Bin\CDLL\Win32). Examples include:

Audio Video Detection demo (AVDetection_Original.exe)
Audio replace demo (AudioReplace_Original.exe)
MediaInfo demo (MediaInfo_Original.exe)
The LEADTOOLS DVD Module includes several demo executables. These include:
- DVD burner demo (DVDBurner_Original.exe)
- DVD Authoring demo (DVDAuthor_Original.exe)
The LEADTOOLS Streaming Module includes several demo executables. These include:
- Video Conferencing demos (NetServer_Original.exe and NetClient_Original.exe)
The LEADTOOLS MPEG-2 Transport Module includes several demo executables. These include:
- MPEG2 Transport demo (MPEG2Transport_Original.exe)
- Convert KLV demo (convertKLV_Original.exe)
- DVR demo (DVR_Original.exe)

Add-on Modules

The following 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 Streaming Module is perfect for developers implementing video conferencing or serving videos-on-demand. Either standard IIS web servers or Microsoft Media Servers can be used.
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). It can also be used to create and play DVR files, and adds DVR support to the Capture, Convert, and Play objects.

LEADTOOLS Multimedia Suite

Includes the LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDK, all of the modules listed above, every LEAD codec and filter (except the DICOM filters), and the LEADTOOLS Distributed Computing (Job Processor) SDK.

Requirements

LEADTOOLS Multimedia API 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.

Supported Environments

The environments supported depend upon the specific product, platform and function being used. For more information, refer to Supported Platforms/Operating Systems.