How Filters Connect

[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 It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation.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 article describes how filters connect in DirectShow. The article is intended for filter developers. If you are writing a DirectShow application, you can probably ignore the details presented here.

This article contains the following topics:

CBasePin Connection Process

Writing DirectShow Filters