Using Installable Compressors for Non-video Data

Installable compressors are not necessarily limited to video data. By using a different value than 'vidc' in the fccType member, you can specify that your installable driver expects to handle a type of data that is not video. (Four-character codes for non-video data should also be registered. For information about registering four-character codes, see .

While VidEdit does not support data that is not audio or video, MCIAVI does provide limited support for other data types using installable renderers. If you create a stream with a four-character code type that does not represent audio or video, its type and handler information will be used to search for a driver capable of handling the data. The search will follow the same procedure used for installable compressor drivers.

Writing a driver to render non-video data is very similar to rendering video, with the following differences:

• The format used is not a BITMAPINFO structure. The format is defined by the class of decompressor.
• The ICM_DECOMPRESS messages are not used. All data is rendered using the ICM_DRAW messages because there is no defined decompressed form for arbitrary data.