Why does VMR7 work on Win7?

[Bogdan]

I just got a Win7 machine and tested my app that used to run on W2K and XP.
The app plays media clips (wmv, mp4, etc.) and also displays feeds from
camera and analog TV tuner.
I started the test with both clips and TV tuner set for VMR9. This is how I
had the install setup: the default for W2K was VR, for XP - VMR7, and
anything above - VMR9. I could not get the VMR9 to work properly with TV
tuner (hesitation, tearing, etc.) - not much different than on XP (BTW, has
anyone got VMR9 working with any live feeds on any OS?). I then decided to
switch to VMR7 and was surprised that it worked as good as on my XP
machine.

This is somewhat confusing because I always thought that VMR7 was supported
on XP platform only.
Could someone please explain this or send me some pointers to docs? Is
DirectDraw/Overlay surface still supported on Win7? Or, is VMR7 emulated in
software? If the latter is true then this would be a pretty good emulation
if it beats Direct3D based VMR9.

I'd appreciate _any_ input.
Thanks,
Bogdan

[somebody]

"Bogdan" <bog...@nocompany.com> wrote in message
news:e4Hh2Kne...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

Old VMR is not the only one using DirectDraw, so it has to be supported by
new Windows 7. Otherwise some older applications wouldn't work any more.
VMR9 works fine. I don't know why are you having problems with it. Did you
try with newer/older VGA driver?

[Bogdan]

"somebody" <na...@gmail.con> wrote in message
news:OKJzn%23xgKH...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

Thanks for the reply. I think I misread the docs on VMR7 (must've happened
a few years ago). I mistakenly thought that VMR7 is supported on XP only.
It looks like it is supported on XP and later.

In regards to VMR9... Honestly, I could never make it run properly with TV
tuners from Hauppauge and AverMedia. I tested it on different machines with
ATI and Nvidia graphics cards. The main symptom was hesitation. The same
machines worked fine with VMR7 and EVR.
Did you get VMR9 to work properly with a TV tuner? If yes, what
tuner/graphics card/OS combination did you use?
BTW, I use VMR9 in windowless mode and the TV tuner in analog mode.

Thanks,
Bogdan

[John Doe]

> Thanks for the reply. I think I misread the docs on VMR7 (must've happened a
> few years ago). I mistakenly thought that VMR7 is supported on XP only. It
> looks like it is supported on XP and later.
>
> In regards to VMR9... Honestly, I could never make it run properly with TV
> tuners from Hauppauge and AverMedia. I tested it on different machines with
> ATI and Nvidia graphics cards. The main symptom was hesitation. The same
> machines worked fine with VMR7 and EVR.
> Did you get VMR9 to work properly with a TV tuner? If yes, what
> tuner/graphics card/OS combination did you use?
> BTW, I use VMR9 in windowless mode and the TV tuner in analog mode.
>

I did many tests with various capture/tuner cards. They all suffer from some
kind of a "preview pin problem", or crashing.
DirectShow filters of Pinnacle and Hauppauge cards usually where crashing even
when used in graph edit application. Some other cards worked fine at first
sight, but I experienced problems when I plugged multiple cards (same
vendor/model) in one system. Preview sometimes stopped working or it worked only
on the first filter connected to VMR9 or WMR. Other capture filters simply
refused to connect their preview pin to VMR9 or VMR.
In my case, I realized that the best solution is to use Osprey cards. However,
they don't have a tuner, which is a drawback in your case. Also, I had to write
my own filter which is connected only to capture pin and not to preview pin. Of
course, custom filter has also out-pin connected to VMR9 for preview purposes.
While developing that filter I did have some problems on detecting proper
pitch/stride for selected resolution, but it was nothing dramatic.