Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK
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Next Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK This documentation describes the Microsoft® Windows Media® Format Software Development Kit (SDK). The Windows Media Format SDK is a component of the Microsoft Windows Media Software Development Kit (SDK). Other components include the Windows Media Services SDK, Windows Media Encoder SDK, Windows Media Rights Manager SDK, Windows Media Device Manager SDK, and Windows Media Player SDK. The Windows Media Format SDK enables developers to create applications that play, write, edit, encrypt, and deliver Advanced Systems Format (ASF) files and network streams, including ASF files and streams that contain audio and video content encoded with the Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video codecs. ASF files that contain Windows Media–based content have the .wma and .wmv extensions. For more information about the Advanced Systems Format container structure, see Overview of the ASF Format. The key features of the Windows Media Format SDK are: z Support for industry-leading codecs. The Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK includes the Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 codec and the Microsoft Windows Media Audio 9 codec. Both of these codecs provide exceptional encoding of digital media content. This SDK also includes the Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec for compressing computer-screen activity during sessions of user applications, and the new Windows Media Audio 9 Voice codec, which encodes low-complexity audio such as speech and intelligently adapts to more complex audio such as music, for superior representation of combined voice-music scenarios. z Support for writing ASF files. Files are created based on customizable profiles, enabling easy configuration and standardization of files. This SDK can be used to write files in excess of 2 gigabytes, enabling longer, better-quality, continuous files. z Support for reading ASF files. This SDK provides support for reading local ASF files as well as reading ASF data being streamed over a network. Support is also provided for many advanced reading features, such as native support for multiple bit rate (MBR) files, which contain multiple streams with the same content encoded at different bit rates. The reader automatically selects which MBR stream to use, depending upon available bandwidth at the time of playback. z Support for delivering ASF streams over a network. This SDK provides support for delivering ASF data through HTTP to remote computers on a network, and also for delivering data directly to a remote Windows Media server. z Support for editing metadata in ASF files. Information about a file and its content is easily manipulated with this SDK. Developers can use the robust system of metadata attributes included in the SDK, or create custom attributes to suit their needs. z Improved support for editing applications. This version of the Windows Media Format SDK includes support for advanced features useful to editing applications. The features include fast access to decompressed content, frame-based indexing and seeking, and general improvements in the accuracy of seeking. The new synchronous reading methods provide reading capabilities all within a single thread, for cleaner, more efficient code. z Support for reading and editing metadata in MP3 files. This SDK provides integrated support for reading MP3 files with the same methods used to read ASF files. Applications built with the Windows Media Format SDK can also edit metadata attributes in MP3 files using built-in support for the most common ID3 tags used by content creators. z Support for Digital Rights Management protection. This SDK provides methods for reading and writing ASF files and network streams that are protected by Digital Rights Management to prevent unauthorized playback or copying of the content. This document describes how you can develop digital media applications using the Windows Media Format SDK. It is divided into the following sections. Section Description About the Windows Media Format SDK Provides overview and background information that you should be familiar with before attempting to create applications. Programming Guide Provides detailed instructions for performing various tasks, such as reading, writing and indexing files, protecting files with Digital Rights Management, streaming ASF data over a network, and so on. Programming Reference Provides reference information for the interfaces, methods, functions, structures, enumeration types, and constants related to Windows Media Format. Glossary Defines the terms used in the Windows Media Format SDK documentation. Next © 2000-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Previous Next About the Windows Media Format SDK The Microsoft® Windows Media® Format 9 Series Software Development Kit (SDK) enables developers to create applications that manipulate digital media stored in files conforming to the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) file structure. The ASF structure is a versatile container format for arbitrary streaming media. For more information about the structure of ASF files, see Overview of the ASF Format. This SDK also provides support for encoding and decoding audio and video content using the Windows Media codecs. Each codec (compressor/decompressor) is optimized to get the best quality for a specific type of content. For more information about the supported codecs, see Codec Features. In addition to general file format support and codec integration, the Windows Media Format SDK provides objects for editing descriptive information about digital media. File reading and metadata support is also included for MP3 files, enabling you to create more flexible applications. This overview includes the following sections. Section Description What's New Discusses the differences between the previous and current versions of the Windows Media Format SDK. Overview of the Windows Media Format SDK Introduces the Windows Media Format SDK and discusses the general applications that you can use it for. Concepts Discusses the concepts involved in working with this SDK. This includes terminology, features, and programming concepts. Features Describes the features supported by the objects of this SDK. Each feature topic links to the appropriate how-to and reference topics. Sample Applications Describes the sample applications and sample code contained in the Windows Media Format SDK. Overview of the ASF Format Describes the structure and capabilities of the advanced systems format (ASF), which is used by this SDK. For More Information Describes information available online at the Windows Media Developer Center. See Also z Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK Previous Next © 2000-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Previous Next What's New The Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK introduces new features to provide more power and flexibility to applications that read, write, and manipulate ASF files. The following changes have been made to the SDK since the release of version 7. Synchronous Reading You can now read ASF files with synchronous calls. When reading a file synchronously, you can change the settings of the reader while it is reading. The synchronous reading operations of the SDK do not provide support for reading files over the Internet, but you can use the standard COM interface, IStream, to read from custom sources. Frame-based Indexing You can now index ASF files based on video frames. Both the reader and the synchronous reader can seek to a frame of a video stream and synchronize the other streams to that frame. Indexing and Seeking with SMPTE Time Code The Windows Media Format SDK now enables you to store SMPTE time codes in ASF files. Files can be indexed by SMPTE time code, and both the asynchronous reader and synchronous reader can seek to SMPTE time code index entries. DirectShow Filters The Windows Media Format SDK now includes two Microsoft DirectShow® filters that enable DirectShow- based applications to read and write ASF files. DirectShow also enables applications to capture data from audio-video devices and decompress data from a variety of formats before re-encoding it as Windows Media- based content. Enhanced Profiles Profiles can now contain bandwidth sharing information and stream prioritization information. Bandwidth sharing enables you to specify that two or more streams, regardless of their individual bit rates, will never use more than a specified amount of bandwidth. The bandwidth sharing data in a profile is purely informational; it is not enforced by any logic in the SDK. Stream prioritization enables you to specify an order of priority for the streams in a profile. If there is not enough bandwidth at playback to stream the file properly, the lowest priority streams can be ignored in order to improve performance. DRM Writing Capability In addition to the existing DRM-reading support, the Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK adds support for writing ASF files with either DRM version 1 or DRM version 7 protection. This new capability enables "Live DRM" scenarios such as pay-per-view webcasting of live sporting events or concerts. Enhanced File Sink Several new file sink capabilities have been added to this version of the SDK. You now have the ability to configure the file sink to disable automatic indexing of newly created ASF files. You also have the option to configure it for unbuffered input and output. DirectX Video Acceleration DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) is a technology that enables playback of high bit rate video (DVD quality or better) on less powerful machines with DXVA-enabled