The Media Foundation APIs are the Vista+ replacement.
The Media Foundation APIs are the Vista+ replacement.
Very nice. But I am a bit more tentative about jumping onto the latest and greatest that MS comes up with. How do I know that 1 or 2 years later they won't deprecate it in favor of something else? They have a bad habit of doing just that and it seems to be getting worse.The Media Foundation APIs are the Vista+ replacement.
Oh sorry guys! I had completely forgotten about this post :P
I found out how to link that very same day. Thanks for all the after-input though!
Oh wait, something confuses me.
There exist free media players out there - do they have to pay royalties for being able to play MP3 and use other codecs?
I'm not sure how it all works. If you look up information about MP3 they are very strict on their licensing and what they will allow. Of course just because they won't allow something does not mean that everyone obeys that. Attempting to go after everyone who illegaly supports the MP3 format would cost far too much money. If you google about the MP3 format I think you will find more information concerning licensing, etc. AFAIK the format is only available if you pay for the licensing and documentation.There exist free media players out there - do they have to pay royalties for being able to play MP3 and use other codecs?
MP3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If I interpret this correctly then it seems that any software, free or not, that uses the mp3 format without licensing it is breaking the patent laws. But then there's also this
Although there's technically nothing that's stopping the patent holders from changing their minds and start sueing people left and right but I can't quite see that happeningAdditionally, patent holders declined to enforce license fees on free and open source decoders, which allows many free MP3 decoders to develop.[43] Thus, while patent fees have been an issue for companies that attempt to use MP3, they have not meaningfully impacted users, which allows the format to grow in popularity.
Wikipedia also claims that
So in a few years this won't be an issue at all for anyone.The various MP3-related patents expire on dates ranging from 2007 to 2017 in the U.S
Another alternative is to use SDL, and SDL_mixer, which has support for a bunch of file types. It's also very simple to learn and use.
How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.