DirectShow

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! DirectShow, codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology. Based on the Microsoft Windows Component Object Model framework, DirectShow provides a common interface for media across many programming languages, and is an extensible, filter-based framework that can render or record media files on demand at the request of the user or developer. The DirectShow development tools and documentation were originally distributed as part of the DirectX SDK. Currently, they are distributed as part of the Windows SDK. DirectShow's counterparts on other platforms include Apple's QuickTime framework and various Linux multimedia frameworks such as GStreamer or Xine. Microsoft plans to completely replace DirectShow gradually with Media Foundation in future Windows versions.Windows Vista and Windows 7 applications use Media Foundation instead of DirectShow for several media related tasks.