Data Flow in the Filter Graph

[The feature associated with this page, DirectShow, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation. Those features have been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation instead of DirectShow, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

This section describes how media data moves through the filter graph. Usually, you do not need to know these details to write a DirectShow application, although in some situations you may find it helpful. If you are writing a DirectShow filter, you will need to understand this material.

This section contains the following topics:

Data Flow for Filter Developers