| Microsoft DirectX 8.1 (C++) |
Microsoft® DirectShow® provides a component called the DVD Navigator source filter which simplifies DVD navigation tasks. The DVD Navigator has all the capabilities that you find on a full-featured stand-alone DVD player, plus additional capabilities specific to playing DVDs on personal computers. Using the DVD Navigator, C++ and scripting developers can create full-featured DVD applications without referring to the DVD specification. The DVD Navigator, in coordination with the decoder filters, also handles regional management and copyright protection (CSS and Macrovision), isolating application developers from these details.
The DVD Navigator filter works across an entire DVD-Video "volume," which consists of the files in the VIDEO_TS directory. Unlike most DirectShow source filters that work with individual streams or files, the DVD Navigator uses the DVD-Video structure of titles, chapters, and time codes. Developers wishing to play individual MPEG-2 files in DirectShow should use the MPEG-2 Demultiplexer instead of the DVD Navigator filter. See MPEG-2 Support in DirectShow for more information.
C++ developers control the DVD Navigator directly through the Component Object Model (COM) interfaces it exposes. Developers using a scripting language or Microsoft® Visual Basic® control the DVD Navigator indirectly through the MSWebDVD ActiveX® control.
Most DVD applications, including as players with customized interfaces, Web pages that control DVD playback, PowerPoint presentations with embedded DVD video, can be created in HTML or Visual Basic using the MSWebDVD ActiveX control. This is simpler and faster than using C++, which is only required for more specialized applications, such as games, programs that overlay graphics on video, custom ActiveX controls or DLLs, and so on.
Note DirectShow provides all the filters necessary to navigate and play DVD-Video except the MPEG-2 decoder. To play DVDs using an application based on DirectShow, users must have installed on their system a third-party hardware or software decoder that is DirectShow-compatible.
This section contains the following topics.
For references on DVD/MPEG2 decoder development, see DVD Decoder Development in DirectShow.
DVD-ROM content developers: The DVD-ROM Boilerplate video is located in the DXF > Extras folder of the DirectX® 8 Software Development Kit. (Click on "Explore this CD" to navigate to the folder. This folder does not install to your local drive.) The boilerplate video is provided for developers producing DVD-ROM titles that contain no DVD-Video formatted data. A disc without a proper DVD-Video zone may behave unpredictably when placed in a standalone DVD-Video player, possibly ejecting the disc or locking up. This confusing situation can be avoided by adding the DVD-ROM boilerplate video to the disc. When the disc is inserted into a DVD-Video player it will display a message informing the user that the disc is designed to work in a DVD-ROM PC with Microsoft® Windows®.