Working with Sources

[The feature associated with this page, DirectShow, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation. Those features have been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation instead of DirectShow, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

[This API is not supported and may be altered or unavailable in the future.]

A source object represents a single media stream from a source file. Sources provide the raw material for a project. Everything else in the timeline exists either to provide structure (tracks, compositions, and groups) or to modify sources (effects and transitions).

This article describes various details relating to sources in Microsoft® DirectShow® Editing Services (DES). For information on the basic steps needed to add a source to the timeline, see Constructing a Timeline.

This article contains the following sections.

• Setting Properties on Sources
• Using the Media Detector
• Using the Media Locator
• Other Source Objects

Related topics

Using DirectShow Editing Services