Major Types

[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 It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation.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.]

The following table describes the major media types.

GUID Description
MEDIATYPE_AnalogAudio
Analog audio.
MEDIATYPE_AnalogVideo
Analog video.
MEDIATYPE_Audio
Audio. See Audio Subtypes.
MEDIATYPE_AUXLine21Data
Line 21 data. Used by closed captions. See Line 21 Media Types.
MEDIATYPE_File
File. (Obsolete)
MEDIATYPE_Interleaved
Interleaved audio and video. Used for Digital Video (DV).
MEDIATYPE_LMRT
Obsolete. Do not use.
MEDIATYPE_Midi
MIDI format.
MEDIATYPE_MPEG2_PES
MPEG-2 PES packets. See MPEG-2 Media Types.
MEDIATYPE_MPEG2_SECTIONS
MPEG-2 section data. See MPEG-2 Media Types.
MEDIATYPE_ScriptCommand
Data is a script command, used by closed captions.
MEDIATYPE_Stream
Byte stream with no time stamps. See Stream Subtypes.
MEDIATYPE_Text
Text.
MEDIATYPE_Timecode
Timecode data. Note: DirectShow does not provide any filters that support this media type.
MEDIATYPE_URL_STREAM
Obsolete. Do not use.
MEDIATYPE_VBI
Vertical blanking interval (VBI) data (for television). Same as KSDATAFORMAT_TYPE_VBI.
MEDIATYPE_Video
Video. See Video Subtypes.

Remarks

The subtype GUID further defines the format. For some formats, the subtype GUID might be MEDIASUBTYPE_None, which means the format does not require a subtype.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Header
Dshow.h

See also

Media Types