Property Sets

Microsoft® DirectShow® uses property sets to support extended services offered by hardware and its associated drivers and filters. Hardware and filter vendors can define new capabilities as properties, arrange them in property sets, and publish the specification for these property sets. As the application developer, you can use the methods of the IKsPropertySet interface to determine whether a driver or filter supports a particular set of properties, and retrieve or set those properties.

All the methods exposed by IKsPropertySet require a GUID that identifies the property set (the guidPropSet parameter) and a DWORD that identifies the property within the property set (the dwPropID parameter). The dwPropID parameter is typically a member of an enumerated data type.

Individual properties can also have associated data that you specify in the pPropData parameter in the IKsPropertySet::Set and IKsPropertySet::Get methods. IKsPropertySet intentionally leaves these parameters undefined (data type LPVOID), enabling the property set's designer to use them in a way most beneficial to the individual property. The definition of each property provides the purpose of the property data.

DirectShow provides property sets for DVD and capture. The following sections provide more information about these property sets.