Video for Windows was a suite of video-playing and editing software introduced byMicrosoft in 1992. A runtime version for viewing videos only was made available as a free add-on toWindows 3.1, which then became an integral component ofWindows 95. Video for Windows was mostly replaced by the July 1996 release ofActiveMovie, later known asDirectShow.
Video for Windows was first introduced in November 1992. It was developed as a reaction toApple Computer'sQuickTime technology, which added digital video to theMacintosh platform. Costing around $200,[1] the product includedediting andencoding programs for use with video input boards. A runtime version for viewing videos only was also made available as a free add-on toWindows 3.1 and Windows 3.11; it then became an integral component ofWindows 95 and later.
Like QuickTime, Video for Windows had three key aspects:Audio Video Interleave (AVI), a container file format designed to store digital video; anapplication programming interface (API) that allowedsoftware developers to play or manipulatedigital video in their own applications; a suite of software for playing and editing digital video. VfW software suite consisted of:
The original version was limited to a maximum resolution of 320 pixels by 240 pixels and a maximum image rate of 30 frames per second.
Video for Windows was mostly replaced by the July 1996 release ofActiveMovie, later known asDirectShow. It was first released as abeta version along with the second beta ofInternet Explorer 3.[2] ActiveMovie was released as a free download, either standalone or bundled withInternet Explorer. ActiveMovie, however, did not supportvideo capture. Video for Windows was still used for video capture until the release ofWindows Driver Model capture drivers, which only started to become popular in 2000.
Video for Windows became an issue in a lawsuitApple filed in December 1994 againstSan Francisco Canyon Company and in 1995 againstMicrosoft andIntel alleging theft of several thousand lines ofQuickTime source code to improve the performance of Video for Windows.[3][4][5][6] This lawsuit was ultimately settled in 1997, when Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser overNetscape; in exchange, Microsoft agreed to continue developingMicrosoft Office and other software forMac OS for the next 5 years, and purchase $150 million of non-voting Apple stock.[7][8]
In March 1997, Microsoft announced that ActiveMovie would become part ofDirectX 5,[9] and around July started referring to it asDirectShow.[10]
| Release date | Version | Description |
|---|---|---|
| November 1992 | Video for Windows 1.0 | First public release. Including MicrosoftRLE andVideo1 (CRAM, only pal8 supported) andIntel Indeo v2.1 codecs. Works, except for the Indeo codec, on 16bit 286-CPUs. |
| November 1993 | Video for Windows 1.1 | AddedCinepak codec and requires 32bit 386-CPUs or better. Five updates were released for this version: 1.1a through 1.1e, with the last one (published in March 1995) being the last version for Windows 3.1x. 1.1d includedIndeo 3.2 codec (which Apple alleged to have infringed on the source code from Apple's QuickTime for Windows). |
| September 1994 | Video for Windows NT | Bundled withWindows NT 3.5 and later |
| August 1995 | Video for Windows 95 | Bundled withWindows 95 |
| July 1996 | ActiveMovie 1.0 | The successor of Video for Windows. Added support forMPEG-1 and QuickTime file formats. |
| March 1997 | DirectShow 1.0 | The successor of ActiveMovie. |
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