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Delivering Samples

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[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 It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation.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 a filter delivers a sample. It describes both the push model, using IMemInputPin methods, and the pull model, using IAsyncReader.

Push Model: Delivering a Sample

The output pin delivers a sample by calling the IMemInputPin::Receive method or the IMemInputPin::ReceiveMultiple method, which is equivalent but delivers an array of samples. The input pin can block inside Receive (or ReceiveMultiple). If the pin might block, its IMemInputPin::ReceiveCanBlock method should return S_OK. If the pin guarantees never to block, ReceiveCanBlock should return S_FALSE. The S_OK return value does not mean that Receive always blocks, just that it might.

Although Receive can block to wait for a resource to become available, it should not block to wait for more data from the upstream filter. Doing so can cause a deadlock where the upstream filter waits for the downstream filter to release the sample, which never happens because the downstream filter is waiting on the upstream filter. If a filter has multiple input pins, however, one pin can wait for another pin to receive data. For example, the AVI Mux filter does this so that it can interleave audio and video data.

A pin might reject a sample for a number of reasons:

  • The pin is flushing (see Flushing).
  • The pin is not connected.
  • The filter is stopped.
  • Some other error occurred.

The Receive method should return S_FALSE in the first case, and a failure code in the other cases. The upstream filter should stop sending samples when the return code is anything other than S_OK.

You can consider the first three cases to be "expected" failures, in the sense that the filter was in the wrong state to receive samples. An unexpected failure would be one that causes the pin to reject a sample even though the pin is in a receiving state. If an error of this type occurs, the pin should send an end-of-stream notification downstream, and send an EC_ERRORABORT event to the Filter Graph Manager.

In the DirectShow base classes, the CBaseInputPin::CheckStreaming method checks for the general failure cases—flushing, stopped, and so forth. The derived class will need to check for failures that are specific to the filter. In case of an error, the CBaseInputPin::Receive method sends the end-of-stream notification and the EC_ERRORABORT event.

Pull Model: Requesting a Sample

In the IAsyncReader interface, the input pin requests samples from the output pin by calling one of the following methods:

The Request method is asynchronous; the input pin calls IAsyncReader::WaitForNext to wait for the request to complete. The other two methods are synchronous.

When to Deliver Data

A filter always delivers samples while it is in the running state. In most cases, a filter also delivers samples while paused. This enables the graph to cue up the data so that playback starts immediately when Run is called (see Filter States). If your filter does not deliver data while paused, the filter's IMediaFilter::GetState method should return VFW_S_CANT_CUE in the paused state. This return code signals the filter graph not to wait for data from your filter before it completes the pause transition. Otherwise, the Pause method will block indefinitely. For example code, see CBaseFilter::GetState.

Here are some examples of when a filter might need to return VFW_S_CANT_CUE:

  • Live sources, such as capture filters, should not send data while paused. See Producing Data in a Capture Filter.
  • A splitter filter might or might not send data while paused, depending on the implementation. If the filter uses separate threads to queue data on each output pin, then it can send data while paused. But if the filter uses a single thread for every output pin, the first pin might block the thread when it calls Receive, which will prevent the other pins from sending data. In that case, you should return VFW_S_CANT_CUE.
  • A filter might deliver data sporadically. For example, it might parse a custom data stream and filter out some packets while delivering others. In that case, the filter may not be guaranteed to deliver data while paused.

A source filter (using the push model) or a parser filter (using the push/pull model) creates one or more streaming threads, which deliver samples as quickly as possible. Downstream filters, such as decoders and transforms, typically send data only when Receive is called on their input pins.

Receiving and Delivering Samples