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System Requirements

Media Processor Add-on has the same requirements as Aurigma Graphics Mill 5.5 for .NET. In addition, to work with different video formats it has some special requirements.

Special Requirements

Media Processor Add-on can read media files of many different formats, but does not contain any code that directly works with such files. Instead, it passes this duty on to special third-party frameworks that return necessary data to Media Processor Add-on, and then the add-on, in its turn, presents them to the user.

Therefore, in order to make Media Processor Add-on read audio and video files, you need to manually install the required frameworks. The frameworks should be installed on the machine where the application that uses the add-on will be executed. If one of the frameworks is missing, Media Processor Add-on may not be able to read files of certain types.

Here is the list of the required third-party frameworks.

Framework Supported file formats Used in classes Additional information
DirectShow (part of DirectX) MPEG, AVI, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, MIDI, MP3, WAV, QT (2.0 and lower), MOV, and others. DirectShow Download Page
Media Processor Add-on requires DirectX of version 8.1 or higher.
QuickTime MOV, QT, AIFF, AU, AVI, CDA, DV, MIDI, MPEG, MP3, MQV, M4A, M4B, M4P, M4V, VDU, VR, WAV, and others. QuickTime Download Page
Media Processor Add-on requires QuickTime of version 7 or higher.
Windows Media Format SDK ASF, WMA, WMV, AVI, MP3, MIDI, AIFF, AU, SND, WAV, CDA, MPEG, DVR-MS, and others. Windows Media Download Page
Media Processor Add-on requires Windows Media Format SDK of version 9 or higher.

See also the Additional Notes section below.

How to Check What Frameworks Are Installed

DirectShow

As DirectShow is a part of DirectX, you need to check the version of installed DirectX. To do that manually:

  1. On the Start menu, click Run.
  2. In the Run dialog, type dxdiag.
  3. Click OK. If DirectX is installed, you will see its version in the opened window.

If DirectShow is not installed and you will try to open a file with DSReader, an exception will be raised.

QuickTime

To manually check if QuickTime installed and what its version is:

  1. On the Start menu, click Control Panel.
  2. On the Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs.
  3. Select QuickTime . If you cannot find this item, QuickTime is not installed.
  4. Click Click here for support information. You will see the version in the opened window.

If QuickTime is not installed and you will try to open a file with QTReader, an exception will be raised.

Windows Media

To check the Windows Media version manually:

  1. On the Start menu, click Control Panel.
  2. On the Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs.
  3. Select Windows Media Format N SDK . Make sure that N is 9 or greater.

If Windows Media is not installed and you will try to open a file with WMReader, an exception will be raised.

Additional Notes

DirectShow

DirectShow opens all files that can be played with Windows Media Player plus files in several more formats. This framework is recommended to use when reading MPEG, MPEG-2 and AVI.

DirectShow may give inaccurate results for MPEG files when seeking to the Nth frame and determining file duration or frame count.

QuickTime

QuickTime opens files of almost all formats, though it is a bit slow. This framework is recommended to use when reading MOV and different graphic formats.

Windows Media

Windows Media is intended to work with the ASF, WMV, WMA and MP3 formats. Therefore, this framework is recommended to use when reading files of these types.

Compared to other frameworks, Windows Media provides a better support of ID3 metadata.

See Also

Reference

Manual