Media Player Control Architecture

The Media Player control is built on Microsoft DirectShow™ technology. DirectShow is a component object model (COM) based architecture that employs pluggable components called filters to process multimedia data. Each filter is designed to receive digital input, process the data, and pass the results on to the next filter. The filters are arranged in a configuration called a filter graph.

DirectShow technology is based on several Microsoft services, including:

• Microsoft DirectDraw® for two dimensional graphics hardware acceleration.
• Microsoft DirectSound® for audio mixing and low-latency audio.
• Microsoft Direct3D® for three dimensional graphics hardware acceleration.

Filters and filter graphs can be created by implementing COM interfaces that use the class libraries and documentation provided by the DirectShow SDK. However, it is not necessary to understand Microsoft Visual C++® programming or COM to use the Player control.

The following diagram illustrates the relationship between DirectShow and the Media Player control.