Windows 98 contains several components to enhance your multimedia experience, whether you are creating, displaying, or simply playing titles. The multimedia features(DVD Player) of Windows 98 include Microsoft DirectX, the Media Control Interface (MCI), AutoPlay, and improved support for multimedia files and devices.

DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow applications to gain access directly to a system’s multimedia hardware. The DirectX APIs included in Windows 98 can be broken down into the following components:

• DirectDraw, a 2-D graphics interface, supports accelerated animation techniques by providing direct access to bitmaps in off-screen display memory as well as extremely fast access to the blitting and buffer-flipping capabilities of a computer’s video adapter.
• DirectSound provides an interface between applications and an audio adapter’s sound mixing, playback, and capture capabilities.
• Direct3D, a 3-D graphics interface, supports the 3D-rendering functionality built into modern display adapters.
• DirectPlay allows for easy connectivity of games over a modem link or network.
• DirectInput provides functionality to process input from joysticks, gamepads, keyboards, mice, Human Interface Device (HID) devices, and force feedback devices. Although DirectInput is similar to Windows 98 input components, it provides advanced joystick input capabilities for games and scalability for future Windows hardware input APIs and drivers.
• DirectAnimation makes it possible to have titles that combine different types of media, such as images, 3-D objects, sounds, movies, and text, where any or all the media types can be animated and respond to user input. DirectAnimation enables multimedia content on Web pages, on your desktop, and in standalone titles.
• DirectShow, formerly known as ActiveMovie, provides support for a Digital Video Disk (DVD) Navigator/Splitter, proxy filters for video and audio streams, a video mixer, a video renderer, and an audio renderer.

Media Control Interface

The Media Control Interface (MCI) provides applications created for Windows 98 with device-independent capabilities for controlling such media devices as audio hardware, videodisc players, and animation players. This interface works with MCI device drivers to interpret and run such MCI commands as pause, play, and stop.

MCI provides a set of core commands for a broad range of media devices. For example, MCI uses the same command to begin playback of a waveform-audio file, a videodisc track, and an animation sequence. It also provides extended commands for using particular device types with unique capabilities, such as a frame-based time format used in animation. For more information about MCI drivers and commands, see the Microsoft Windows 98 Device Development Kit.

A device type identifies a class of MCI devices that respond to a common set of commands. Table 12.1 lists the currently defined MCI device types.