Some general dev questions regarding media center and media player applications (1 Viewer)

[stax]

I'm looking into modifying Media Player Classic since it lacks in areas of my interest which are very different of the interests of the current devs, I would like to use it on the desktop as well as external player within a media center application ideally with integration close to the native player of the media center.

Instead of using C++/MFC/COM I would like to use C++/CLR to build a bridge to .NET/WPF/MEF.

I understand that media center applications require event and command systems, are there good resources explaining how these systems work? I was reading there will be many core changes for MP v2, I'm looking forward to that but I guess that it will take time as all good things.

Microsoft will use WPF and MEF at core parts of new Visual Studio versions and other applications and I'm interested to learn about WPF and MEF to find out if it can be useful for my media player project. Some of these things will be used in MP 2 which I also look forward to.

I do understand that WPF does not work within DirectShow and therefore I also wonder how things would work if I would just put WPF controls or windows on top of DirectShow windows. A similar solution seems to work for Zoom Player though I don't have too much experience with Zoom Player as I'm using MPC.

I saw somebody of the MeediOS (which looks very promising as well btw.) team working on a solution to display DirectShow within WPF but the playback was jerky when I tested it. I wonder if it's possible to just host a SWF control within WPF in order to display DirectShow and what differences both solutions have.

 

[tourettes]

Mixing directshow and WPF has been pretty problematic (really limited) in the past. I think MeediOS guys are still struggling with good quality and low overhead (GPU/CPU) playback hack with WPF.

For MPII it was evaluated that WPF has too many limitations and has too low performance when it comes to media playback (the performance is tweaked and few limitations are lifted with .NET 3.5 SP1 but not all). Some of those performance issues might came from the fact that WPF has been designed to be a framework for all different kinds of platforms.

Writing up a HTPC application from a scratch is not a small thing to do. Thats why I would propose that it would be much easier (and more beneficial) to try to contribute to some of the already existing, open source HTPC projects (MediaPortal, XBMC, MeediOS...). Both sides would win.

So, what kind of HTPC application you are planning to write? What are the things in the current (and MPII) HTPC applications that make you think that they aren't suitable for your use? What should be different?

It's always nice to see someone interested in multimedia related programming, but at same time a little bit sad (and pretty common ) to see person wanting to start "Yet Another Music Player" World has already enough different players and HTPC applications. There should be one that is close enough for your personal needs so that you could just extend it a little bit (remember that both sides will win ).

 

[stax]

I guess I'm too lazy, will check the code.