What is VFW??

NTDEV
1

Hello All,

I have one doubt

What is VFW???
is VFW supports Windows XP and Windows Vista…???
what about its code availability???
is there any video frame scaling support available in VFW??

Thanks

Pravin G

2

Video for Windows.

A very good and simple technology of writing user-mode video source
drivers, obsoleted by MS due to some strange reasons.
MS now forces people to write full DirectShow filter, which is by far more
complex for a marginal value, or even go kernel-mode and write the AVStream
driver.
VfW is very good, since this is actually a “video miniport”, wrapped around
to be a DirectShow filter by MS’s framework named QCAP.DLL. Too bad this
miniport-style technology is obsoleted.

Yes, works in XP, if you will manage to find the proper headers, LIBs and
samples (I remember to find these headers in Win98 DDK)

Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

----- Original Message -----
From: “pravin gawale”
To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 6:02 PM
Subject: [ntdev] What is VFW??

> Hello All,
>
> I have one doubt
>
> What is VFW???
> is VFW supports Windows XP and Windows Vista…???
> what about its code availability???
> is there any video frame scaling support available in VFW??
>
> Thanks
>
> Pravin G
>
> —
> NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
>
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3

pravin gawale wrote:

I have one doubt

What is VFW???

Video For Windows, the original video capture and playback architecture
for Windows. Introduced circa 1993.

is VFW supports Windows XP and Windows Vista…???

Of course.

what about its code availability???

For what? The components are included with the operating system. It’s
certainly possible to write Video for Windows applications today. The
<vfw.h> header is still included with the Platform SDK.

> is there any video frame scaling support available in VFW??

Depends on what you mean. Because VFW was not a graph-based technology,
the application had to provide the component parts on its own. So, you
created the overlay surface on your own and drew into it. You could
certainly set up the overlay to do scaling.

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.</vfw.h>

4

> Depends on what you mean. Because VFW was not a graph-based technology,

VFW video sources are automatically wrapped around by QCAP.DLL and become
DirectShow source filters. You need to write no code for this.

So, VFW device is automatically DirectShow-compatible, with QCAP being kinda a
framework to hide the “skeletal” details of DirectShow from you.

–
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

5

Maxim S. Shatskih wrote:

> Depends on what you mean. Because VFW was not a graph-based technology,
>

VFW video sources are automatically wrapped around by QCAP.DLL and become
DirectShow source filters. You need to write no code for this.

So, VFW device is automatically DirectShow-compatible, with QCAP being kinda a
framework to hide the “skeletal” details of DirectShow from you.

Video For Windows applications are not graph-based. He’s not asking
“how can I use my VFW drivers in DirectShow applications.” He’s asking
“how can VFW applications take advantage of my device.”

–
Tim Roberts, xxxxx@probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.