DirectShow Compatibility: Is Your Camera Behaving Badly?

[Jon Westfall]

http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac....mera_phones.php

"This web page lists which devices expose usable camera modes via DirectShow and those which make problems. Since Windows Mobile 2005 all devices should expose their camera data via DirectShow to software developers. Many devices provide their camera data only at lower quality than the camera can actually do. In practice this means that the built-in camera application (which usually uses a propriatory API) makes full potential of the camera while software developers can only use those modes that are available via DirectShow. Some of the reported problems might be solved with later ROM images. Our experience is though that once there are bugs in final ROMs then these are usually not solved lateron anymore."

Apparently some ROMs don't tell DirectShow what they can do as far as the built-in camera is concerned. I hadn't realized how big of a problem that could be for developers until I saw this write-up. Interesting stuff - and useful if you're planning on deploying devices with homegrown camera-enabled apps!

[Jon Westfall]

http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac....mera_phones.php

"This web page lists which devices expose usable camera modes via DirectShow and those which make problems. Since Windows Mobile 2005 all devices should expose their camera data via DirectShow to software developers. Many devices provide their camera data only at lower quality than the camera can actually do. In practice this means that the built-in camera application (which usually uses a propriatory API) makes full potential of the camera while software developers can only use those modes that are available via DirectShow. Some of the reported problems might be solved with later ROM images. Our experience is though that once there are bugs in final ROMs then these are usually not solved lateron anymore."

Apparently some ROMs don't tell DirectShow what they can do as far as the built-in camera is concerned. I hadn't realized how big of a problem that could be for developers until I saw this write-up. Interesting stuff - and useful if you're planning on deploying devices with homegrown camera-enabled apps!