Windows Media Player Custom Visualizations

[The feature associated with this page, Windows Media Player SDK, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer. MediaPlayer has been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer instead of Windows Media Player SDK, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

Microsoft Windows Media Player provides visualizations that enable the user to see visual imagery that is synchronized to the sound of the media content as it plays. Several standard visualizations are included with Windows Media Player, including Spikes, Bars, and DotPlane. This section of the SDK provides programming information that will enable you to create your own visualizations.

The custom visualization documentation is divided into three sections:

Section Description
About Custom Visualizations Discusses the architecture of custom visualizations in abstract terms. You should read this section to understand how visualizations relate to Windows Media Player.
Custom Visualization Programming Guide Explains what you need to do to create a custom visualization. This section contains useful hints and tips that will help you create interesting visualizations.
Custom Visualization Programming Reference Provides a reference for the interface you must implement as well as other technical reference information.

 

Windows Media Player Plug-ins