Share via

DVD-Video API (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)

  • Article

1/6/2010

The DVD-Video application programming interface (API) is designed to allow DVD playback by applications on Windows Embedded CE devices. The DVD-Video API interfaces provide applications with the same functionality as the stand-alone DVD players that are familiar to many consumers.

The DVD-Video API uses high-level rendering interfaces that enable the full functionality of modern multimedia hardware. It is optimized for hardware-based decoding solutions although its Component Object Model (COM) framework provides the flexibility to also support fully software-based solutions. Regardless of whether the decoding is hardware or software-based, the DVD-Video API requires the presence of a third-party DVD-Video decoding solution on the device. If you are using a hardware decoder on your device, you must obtain the device driver from the decoder manufacturer.

Although the DVD-Video API is commonly associated with optical discs, DVD-ROM drives, and dedicated hardware decoding cards, it does not require any of these physical devices. Because it is a middleware component, the DVD-Video API only requires that specific aspects of DVD-Video functionality be expressed through COM components and their interfaces.

For example, after a DVD-Video volume is abstracted through a COM component, it does not matter to the DVD-Video API whether data from that volume is read from an optical disc, a magnetic hard drive, or a network resource. The same is true for DVD-Video decoding. Because the DVD-Video API only interacts with a COM component, the actual decoding can come from dedicated hardware or from a software solution.

Of course, COM components that interact with the DVD-Video API must meet the technical performance and operability standards that are part of the DVD-Video format.

The DVD-Video API only supports the DVD-Video content format. A number of technologies commonly associated with DVDs in general are really unrelated to DVD-Video and therefore are not specifically addressed by the DVD-Video API. Such technologies include the many storage media formats such as DVD-R, and DVD+RW, DVD+RAM, and other content formats such as DVD-Audio.

In This Section

  • DVD-Video API Security
    Provides security information regarding the DVD-Video API and best practices for implementation.
  • DVD-Video API Migration
    Provides information about getting exiting code based on the DVD-Video API to work with the latest version of Windows Embedded CE.
  • Media
    Provides links to information about other Media technologies for Windows Embedded CE.

See Also

Other Resources

Encoded Media