Developing plugins

[sub]

There is currently no dynamic plugin mechanism for this type of class. What are you trying to implement?

[normanr]

I'm trying to implement a recorder that will capture from any generic WDM capture device. This should work on my currently unsupported LifeView (re my post in the hardware forum) and in fact will nail the WebCam request at the same time.

[sub]

OK, I could possibly look at integrating support for this type of plugin in the future. Feel free to write a stand along class that implements this interface, which you can just call from some test harness executable. If you can get this far, send it over and I'll hook up the plugin support.

It'd still need to result in an MPEG2 file, so you'd have to put it through an software MPEG2 encoder filter.

[normanr]

yea, no problem. I think i've got the ligos (en/de)coders installed at the moment. I gather the idea is that when startRecording ( i think that's the call, the sources are at home ) is executed, then the recorder should start the recording (possibly in another thread) and immediatly return to the caller. Then you should be able to query the recording status or the filename location, and then stop the recording too.

btw: there seem to be a whole bunch of directx helpers in the nativeutilities dll. I assume i can piggy back on those?

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]there seem to be a whole bunch of directx helpers in the nativeutilities dll. I assume i can piggy back on those?

There isn't really anything in there you'd be able to use. You're better off writing a standalone implementation.

StartRecording() should construct a directshow graph, then call run() on it, then return.

StopRecording() should call stop() on the graph

getFinalFileName() should return the name of the file passed into StartRecording()

getUniqueDeviceIdentifier() should return "devicename:instance"

[normanr]

Any chance you can dump a bunch of sample code in my direction. I'm thinking the main section of either the direct, or go plugins? I'd also like to avoid installing the DX SDK, but I'm not sure if I can get around that. (In c++ no, in c# maybe)

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]Any chance you can dump a bunch of sample code in my direction.

nope - sorry I dont have anything I can send you.

You'll need to have the DirectX SDK.

[normanr]

I found a bunch of wrapper classes at code project for direct show ( http://www.codeproject.com/cs/media/directshownet.asp ).  They work great.  I'm just busy dropping the Capture.Net sample code into the GB-PVR Plugin framework and then I'll post the code here.

btw: looking at the list of directshow plugins, I noticed a few GB-PVR ones.  Do I have to use any of them?  Not having the list in front of me, as it's at home, but I think there's a file writer plugin that I assume is used to write the .mpg files so you can read them with the frontend at the same time, otherwise the files are locked by the writer?

I have noticed a wierd bug: with the sample code i have, there's a 20% chance that the file will never be written to.  This seems to happen totally randomly, and the only way to fix it is to stop and re-start the graph.  I doubt this is a c# bug, but more likely a directshow or WDM, or my drivers - have you seen anything like this before?

[sub]

Yes, you should probably use the GB-PVR Writer filter, but the rest you can ignore.

No, I havn't seen the bug you describe.

[normanr]

does the filter expect mpg2 input or can it be uncompressed?