MPEG-2 Support in DirectShow

This section describes the interfaces and components that you can use to play back MPEG-2 content by using the Microsoft® DirectX® Media SDK. MPEG-2 allows simple file playback, supports a variety of storage formats (disk or removable media), takes advantage of the Microsoft® Windows Media™ Player control, and requires no authoring. However, MPEG-2 is not supported by all decoders at this time. For information on playing back DVD-based content with Microsoft® DirectShow® using the DVD Navigator and IDVDGraphBuilder components and their interfaces, see DVD for Title Vendors.

The main component provided with DirectShow for MPEG-2 playback is the MPEG-2 Splitter filter (similar to the MPEG-1 Stream Splitter component provided with previous versions of DirectShow). DirectShow does not provide any MPEG-2 decoders. DirectShow-compatible MPEG-2 audio and video decoders that accept MPEG-2 Packetized Elementary Streams (PES) are required for use with the MPEG-2 Splitter filter. The user can activate file playback using the MPEG-2 Splitter filter by double-clicking a file recognized by DirectShow (preferably .mpg) that contains MPEG-2 program stream content. For more information, see Windows Media Player Control.

DirectShow provides a sample MultiFile Source filter that enables playback of multiple file segments as a single stream. In addition, DirectShow provides an Automation wrapper object and a Microsoft® Visual Basic® sample program that uses the filter to play a sequence of clips.

See the following related topics for more information.