Re: I can't believe how complex this Format SDK is...

Sorry it has taken so long to respond, but I have to disagree on your
disagreeing.

I have been coding for over 20 years and have worked with a lot of differing
technologies from low level interrupt programming to high-level user
interface programming. Most of it in C++ and recently within the past 4
years in .NET. I can say with all of the technologies that I have worked
with, COM programming has got to be one of the most painful technologies to
work in and debug. This stuff may make sense to people working in VB, but
C++ people like myself are accustomed to having a bit more of a handle on
what is going on within the plumbing. With that aside, there are certain
pieces of Windows Media, and DirectShow documentation that expect a certain
mold to be followed and that mold may not always be suited for various
applications, even though it may be capable of working in other molds.

Anyhow, I feel that there are also a lot of unanswered questions in the
media SDKs that a low-level C++ programmer, would like to know. I could go
on and on with philosophical reasons on my opinion, but it would take too
long to convey in one Usenet post.


--
-----------------------------------
Ken Varn
Senior Software Engineer
Diebold Inc.

EmailID = varnk
Domain = Diebold.com
-----------------------------------
"Rob Vermeulen" <rvermeulen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:12hq9v6jcmlda7b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Ken,

Sorry for any offence but I disagree.
I find the documentation more than sufficient. If you think outside the box
and understand some common programming principles you should be able to get
most of it working by just reading the examples.
If you ever have unsolvable issues, there's always this newsgroup. But do
not expect quick responses or a one-reply answer. I never had them :)

Cheers,

Rob




"Ken Varn" <nospam> wrote in message
news:u%23CkpS4xGHA.4044@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your subject title says it all. I am in total agreement. I have been
struggling with this SDK documentation for some time now. If MS wants
developers to use this technology then it is high time to fix the SDK
documentation and provide better examples for areas outside of the base
functionality.



--
-----------------------------------
Ken Varn
Senior Software Engineer
Diebold Inc.

EmailID = varnk
Domain = Diebold.com
-----------------------------------
"Rob Perkins" <finitedev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4gtik6F1pejvbU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,

I have, as an input, between three and 200 identically sized BMP files,
which comprise frames in an animation for an engineering simulator,
along with some metadata which describes the framerate of the animation,
among other things. The size of the BMP files averages between 800x600
and 1280x1024.

My *only* desire is to create a lossless silent movie out of those
frames in the framerate specified, in a format *guaranteed* to be
present on any new computer running Windows XP. In other words, I can
require WMP 9, but I can't require the downloading of a custom codec,
which doesn't seem to be working for my customers.

I don't have to stream this movie, but it would be nice if it was
downloadable.

I found a class online which does that (A C++ class on CodeProject
called "Cwmvfile"), by taking HBITMAP structures with the data, and I've
been able to use it, but the end result is a smallish lossy compressed
thing which doesn't show the detail of the bitmaps. The class I'm using
made use of the WMProfile_V80_384Video profile initially, but changes to
that to use other defined profiles don't seem to change the quality of
the resulting WMV movie.

My questions are:

-- In looking at profiles, am I even looking in the right place?
-- I see a WMVIDEOINFOHEADER struct filled in the setup code, but
changing the size of that structure's rcTarget.right or .bottom doesn't
change the resulting movie at all.
-- If profiles are the "right place" to look, how do I make one of my
own with higher quality than the predefined system profiles?
-- If I'm clearly completely lost, how do I get found again, wrt this
topic?

Recommendations of fundamentals books or something similar would not be
out of school at this point, for me. The concepts documentation for this
SDK is poor, and that's stating it kindly.

And for crying out loud, where are the managed .NET interfaces for this
stuff?

Rob





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