This section describes the general design of Microsoft Media Foundation. For information about using Media Foundation for specific programming tasks, see Media Foundation Programming Guide.
Describes core Media Foundation functions, such as asynchronous callbacks and work queues. Some applications might use platform-level interfaces. Also, custom plug-ins, such as media sources and MFTs, use these interfaces.
The Media Foundation pipeline layer consists of media sources, MFTs, and media sinks. Most applications do not call methods directly on the pipeline layer. Instead, applications use one of the higher layers, such as the Media Session or the Source Reader and Sink Writer.
The Source Reader enables an application to get data from a media source, without the application needing to call the media source APIs directly. The Source Reader can also perform decoding of compressed streams.
The protected media path (PMP) provides a protected environment for playing premium video content. It is not necessary to use the PMP when writing a Media Foundation application.
This topic describes the general design of Microsoft Media Foundation. For information about using Media Foundation for specific programming tasks, see Media Foundation Programming Guide.
An attribute is a key/value pair, where the key is a GUID and the value is a PROPVARIANT. Attributes are used throughout Microsoft Media Foundation to configure objects, describe media formats, query object properties, and other purposes.
This section describes sample applications that demonstrate how to use Media Foundation.Encoding SamplesPlayback SamplesPlug-InsSource Reader SamplesVideo CaptureMiscellaneous SamplesDeprecated or Obsolete SamplesRelated topics