Codecs

The Media Player control supports all of the major multimedia compression/decompression algorithms (codecs) in use today. The Player control automatically detects which codec is needed to decompress incoming data. Because the Media Player is based on DirectShow's extensible filter-based architecture, it is easy to add support for new codecs as they are created. The Media Player control also supports non-filter-based codecs, such as Audio Compression Manager (ACM) and Video Compression Manager (VCM). For a complete list of supported codecs, see the NetShow Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/netshow).

Since the decompression takes place on the client computer, some codecs must reside on the client. In most cases, the Media Player control .ocx file is packaged with the appropriate codecs into a .cab (cabinet) file before it is distributed to clients. Other codecs can be downloaded and installed after the player is installed.