About Video Compression and Decompression Drivers

Video compression and decompression drivers provide low-level video compression and decompression services for Microsoft Video for Windows. The compression and decompression algorithms used can be hardware or software based. This chapter explains the Windows interface for these drivers. It covers the following topics:

• General information about writing a video compression and decompression driver
• Information on how a video compression and decompression driver handles the system messages for the installable driver interface
• Information on how a video compression and decompression driver handles messages specific to compressing and decompressing video data
• An alphabetical reference to the messages and data structures used to write video compression and decompression drivers

Before reading this chapter, you should be familiar with the video services available with Windows. You should also be familiar with the Windows installable driver interface. For information about these Windows topics, see the Microsoft(r) Win32(tm) Programmer's Reference.