DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

Since this is my first article on The Code Project, I would like to apologize for my bad English. It is based only on some "school english" and a few words which I snapped during my leisure job as a Ski Instructor and a Rafting Guide during my education.

I hope everyone can understand this article. Still if questions should exist, I will gladly answer these. And if someone should find some errors, please send me the correct version of the wrong text - thanks for the help when improving my English knowledge spoke ;-).

So, let's start...

This small sample program shows, how simple it is to play a video or an audio track with DirectShow and C#.

The program uses the following controls: MainMenu, ToolBar, StatusBar, Panel, ImageList, and a Timer.

Many of the properties are set using the designer, so I would suggest that you download the project, unless of course you are not a beginner.

On the other side, the sample program includes the DirectShow Interface to play videos or audio tracks.

The program demonstrates the following

How to select a media file on the disk, using the OpenFileDialog instance class.
How to enable or disable the buttons of the ToolBar Control.
How to change the text in the StatusBar Control.
How to use a basic Timer.
How to use the Events of the Timer Control.
How to use the Events of the MainMenu Control.
How to use the Events of the ToolBar Control.
How to use the Events of the Windows Form.
How to play a media file with DirectShow.
How to determine, if the media file were finished played.
...

The user interface

Beside the 3 buttons to play and stop a video or an audio track, there are also a menu option to select the desired media file. So, before you can play the desired media file you have to open this file with the "File -> Open..." Command in the MainMenu Control. If the file was duly loaded, it can be played now with the "Play" Button in the ToolBar Control. During playing the video or the audio track, the application shows the current position and the duration of the media file in the StatusBar Control. If the media file were finished played, you can restart playing the media file with the "Play" Button. To select another media file, you can use the "File -> Open..." Command of the MainMenu Control.

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

With the "Info" Command of the MainMenu Control the Info-Dialog of the application will be displayed.

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

The DirectShow Interface:

To play videos or audio files we use the DirectShow Component of the DirectX Package. With the DirectShow Interface it is very simple to play a video or an audio file, most of the work is doing the Interface for you. You only have to setting up the Interface and calling the Interface methods with the correct parameters.

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

Unfortunately .NET and C# is not an officially supported platform for DirectX development and will not be until DirectX 9 is released at the end of the year. However we can use DirectX with C# in the meantime by using the Visual Basic type library's that come with version 7 and 8 of the API. This article demonstrate how to use the DirectX VB Type Lib in C#.

Before we can begin a .NET DirectShow application we need to create a reference to the DirectShow COM DLL. So, copy the "Interop.QuartzTypeLib.dll" DLL into your project folder and add a reference to this DLL. In Visual Studio.NET this is done by choosing Add Reference from the project menu. As next choose the "Browse..." Button of the Add reference Dialog and select the DirectShow COM DLL.

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

So, after the reference to the DirectShow COM DLL is created add the following code line to your project, to make the DirectShow Interface Classes visible.

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using QuartzTypeLib;

The Code

How to select the media file and create the DirectShow Interface?

After the user pressed the "File -> Open..." Command of the MainMenu Control, a "Open File" Dialog is shown and the user can select the desired media file. In C# this is done by creating a instance of the OpenFileDialog class and call the ShowDialog() function.

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new OpenFileDialog();
openFileDialog.Filter = "Media Files|*.mpg;*.avi;*.wma;*.mov;" +
"*.wav;*.mp2;*.mp3|All Files|*.*";
if (DialogResult.OK == openFileDialog.ShowDialog())
{
.
.
.

After the user terminated the dialog with OK, we begin to create the DirectShow Interface and to render the selected media file.

This is done in three steps:

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

Create the filter graph manager (FGM)
Create the filter graph (through FGM)
Run the graph and respond to event

In the following code you see how to create the filter graph manager and the filter graph:

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CleanUp();
m_objFilterGraph = new FilgraphManager();
m_objFilterGraph.RenderFile(openFileDialog.FileName);
m_objBasicAudio = m_objFilterGraph as IBasicAudio;
try
{
m_objVideoWindow = m_objFilterGraph as IVideoWindow;
m_objVideoWindow.Owner = (int) panel1.Handle;
m_objVideoWindow.WindowStyle = WS_CHILD | WS_CLIPCHILDREN;
m_objVideoWindow.SetWindowPosition(panel1.ClientRectangle.Left,
panel1.ClientRectangle.Top,
panel1.ClientRectangle.Width,
panel1.ClientRectangle.Height);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
m_objVideoWindow = null;
}
m_objMediaEvent = m_objFilterGraph as IMediaEvent;
m_objMediaEventEx = m_objFilterGraph as IMediaEventEx;
m_objMediaEventEx.SetNotifyWindow((int) this.Handle, WM_GRAPHNOTIFY, 0);
m_objMediaPosition = m_objFilterGraph as IMediaPosition;
m_objMediaControl = m_objFilterGraph as IMediaControl;

With the CleanUp() method we try to delete the old interfaces, if someone exists. Before we can start to render the file we have to create an new instance of the FilterGraphManager with the new method. The RenderFile() method builds a filter graph that renders the specified file. The IBasicAudio Interface is to set the volume and the balance of the sound. With the IVideoWindow Interface you can set the window style, the owner window and the position of video window. This functions are enclosed by a try because, if you render a audio file and you try to set the owner window the method throws an exception. So, to play a audio track we don't need the IVideoWindow Interface and we set the m_objVideoWindow member to null. The IMediaEvent and the IMediaEventEx Interface serves for interception of message, which sends DirectShow to the parent window. With the IMediaPosition Interface the current position of the file can be determined. To start and stop the video or the audio track we use the IMediaControl Interface.

For more information about the Interface read the DirectShow documentation on MSDN.

How to play a media file?

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

To start a video or an audio track use the Run() method of the IMediaControl Interface.

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m_objMediaControl.Run();

How to break the media file?

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

If you want to break the playing video or audio track just use the Pause() method of the IMediaControl Interface.

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m_objMediaControl.Pause();

How to stop the media file?

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

To stop the video or the audio track use the Stop() method of the IMediaControl Interface.

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m_objMediaControl.Stop();

How to get the position and the duration of the media file?

DirectShow MediaPlayer in C#

While the media file is played, we indicate the current position and the length of the file in the StatusBar Control. In addition we read all 100ms the CurrentPosition member of the IMediaPosition Interface over a timer and represent its value in the statusbar. To get the length of the file we read the Duration member of the IMediaPosition Interface.

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object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
if (m_CurrentStatus == MediaStatus.Running)
{
UpdateStatusBar();
}
}

The timer function calls every 100ms the UpdateStatusBar() method, who is displaying the current position and and the duration of the media files in the panels of the statusbar.

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void UpdateStatusBar()
{
switch (m_CurrentStatus)
{
case MediaStatus.None   : statusBarPanel1.Text = "Stopped"; break;
case MediaStatus.Paused : statusBarPanel1.Text = "Paused "; break;
case MediaStatus.Running: statusBarPanel1.Text = "Running"; break;
case MediaStatus.Stopped: statusBarPanel1.Text = "Stopped"; break;
}
if (m_objMediaPosition != null)
{
int s = (int) m_objMediaPosition.Duration;
int h = s / 3600;
int m = (s  - (h * 3600)) / 60;
s = s - (h * 3600 + m * 60);
statusBarPanel2.Text = String.Format("{0:D2}:{1:D2}:{2:D2}", h, m, s);
s = (int) m_objMediaPosition.CurrentPosition;
h = s / 3600;
m = (s  - (h * 3600)) / 60;
s = s - (h * 3600 + m * 60);
statusBarPanel3.Text = String.Format("{0:D2}:{1:D2}:{2:D2}", h, m, s);
}
else
{
statusBarPanel2.Text = "00:00:00";
statusBarPanel3.Text = "00:00:00";
}
}

When is the end of the file reached?

In order to determine, when the file was finished played, we overwrite the WndProc method, to intercept the EC_COMPLETE message, which sends DirectShow to the parent window, when the end of the file is reached.

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ref Message m)
{
if (m.Msg == WM_GRAPHNOTIFY)
{
int lEventCode;
int lParam1, lParam2;
while (true)
{
try
{
m_objMediaEventEx.GetEvent(out lEventCode,
out lParam1,
out lParam2,
0);
m_objMediaEventEx.FreeEventParams(lEventCode, lParam1, lParam2);
if (lEventCode == EC_COMPLETE)
{
m_objMediaControl.Stop();
m_objMediaPosition.CurrentPosition = 0;
m_CurrentStatus = MediaStatus.Stopped;
UpdateStatusBar();
UpdateToolBar();
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
break;
}
}
}
base.WndProc(ref m);
}

History

19.07.2002 - posted (first version)
26.07.2002 - some changes in design and code

Bugs and comments

If you have any comments or find some bugs, I would love to hear about it and make it better.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

About the Author

Member

Daniel Strigl is living in Austria, where he is studying Computer Science at the University of Innsbruck and working as a Software Developer at a Semiconductor Equipment Company. In his spare time he is working as a Rafting-Guide at the Outdoor Company wasser-c-raft and as a Ski- and Snowboard-Instructor at some local skischools.

His programming experience includes C/C++, C#, Java, Matlab, Assembler, MFC, DirectDraw, DirectShow, OpenGL, STL, .NET, .NET Compact Framework and a little bit HTML, JavaScript and PHP. He has worked on Microcontrollers, Texas Instruments Calculators, Texas Instruments DSPs, Pocket PCs and on PCs. His favorite development tools are Eclipse, Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Keil uVision and Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio.