Comparative analysis of common multimedia development Frameworks (i) DirectShow

DirectShow is one of the oldest multimedia development frameworks, more than 20 years ago, very classic, even now, in the Windows multimedia field is still irreplaceable. Although not open source, with detailed documentation and development guidance, Microsoft's DirectShow SDK is a great resource for learning with a large number of sample code and base class libraries. If you are a novice in the field of multimedia development, regardless of which platform you are developing, I suggest you learn DirectShow, which will tell you what the multimedia framework is like.

DirectShow practice the classic "Pipeline and filter (Pipes and Filters)" design mode, which is the most important design mode in the multimedia field, with it, can be complex multimedia processing tasks into a separate small module, the solution is not so complicated. Many concepts, design and treatment methods in DirectShow are innovative and reference value, which is worth studying. Later, many multimedia frameworks have absorbed more or less nutrients from the DirectShow.

said the advantages of DirectShow, but in fact there are many problems.

One is not open source, can only run in Windows system, Microsoft stuff, this is not much to say.

The second is the modular development and deployment model, which is the advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is the ability to support the integration and reuse of functionality across multiple applications, which is primarily achieved through a lower-level COM architecture, with the drawback that the application is more complex to publish and configure, and more dependent on the operating environment.

Third, the development burden is too heavy. In fact, COM such architecture is the most suitable for the scene is the operating system DIY, if the application does not want to extend the operating system features, and do not want to be called by other applications, then COM to it is completely a burden. Each module in the application implements COM-defined interfaces (such as component registrations, reference counts, interface queries, and so on), and the features that must be implemented by DirectShow (such as format registration, PIN enumeration and connection, memory management, and so on). Although the DirectShow SDK has provided many base class libraries to implement these routines, it is still patience and difficult to focus on the logic of the application itself.

Comparative analysis of common multimedia development Frameworks (i) DirectShow