DirectShow

driver version 1.2.1.0

DirectShow is an standard interface for multimedia devices, defined and provided by Microsoft. With the multimedia framework and application programming interface (API) DirectShow, software developers can perform various operations with video sources, media files or streams. Based on the component object model (COM) framework, DirectShow provides a common interface for media across various programming languages and is an extensible, filter-based framework that can render or record media files on demand at the request of the user or developer.

DirectShow's counterparts on other platforms include Apple’s QuickTime framework and various Linux multimedia frameworks such as Gstreamer or Xine.

DirectShow, being a developer-centric framework and API, does not directly offer end-user control over encoding content, nor does it incorporate a user interface for encoding using installed codes or to different formats; instead, it relies on developers to develop software using the API. The DirectShow driver is suitable, if a DirectShow based program should be developed or if a program should be applied, which has been programmed by using DirectShow. This could regard a lot of free programs available in the world wide web as well as programs, which could be used with various video sources.

DirectShow FAQs

Supported Formats in DirectShow

Introduction to DirectShow application programming