Supported Formats in DirectShow

DirectShow is an open architecture, which means that it can support any format as long as there are filters to parse and decode it. The filters provided by Microsoft, either as redistributables through DirectShow or as Windows operating system components, provide default support for the following file and compression formats.

Note   An asterisk (*) indicates that DirectShow applications must use the Windows Media Format SDK to support this format. For more information, see the article Windows Media and DirectShow: Choices for Windows-based Media Applications.

File formats:

• Windows Media™ Audio (WMA)*
• Windows Media™ Video (WMV)*
• Advanced Streaming Format (ASF)*
• Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
• Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI)
• QuickTime (version 2 and lower)
• WAV
• AIFF
• AU
• SND
• MIDI

Compression formats:

• Microsoft Windows Media Video codec version 7.0*
• ISO MPEG-4 video version 1.0*
• Microsoft MPEG-4 version 3*
• Sipro Labs ACELP*
• Windows Media Audio*
• MPEG Audio Layer-3 (MP3) (decompression only)
• Digital Video (DV)
• MPEG-1
• MJPEG
• Indeo
• Voxware*
• Cinepak

Microsoft does not provide an MPEG-2 decoder. Several DirectShow-compatible hardware and software MPEG-2 decoders are available from third parties.

For information on the availability of particular third-party codecs for redistribution with DirectShow applications, contact the codec manufacturer.