Video for Windows
Video for Windows was a suite of video-playing and editing software introduced by
Mac OS
for the next 5 years, and purchase $150 million of non-voting Apple stock.
Overview
Video for Windows was first introduced in November 1992. It was developed as a reaction to
Macintosh platform. Costing around $200,[1] the product included editing and encoding programs for use with video input boards. A runtime version for viewing videos only was also made available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11; it then became an integral component of Windows 95
and later.
Like QuickTime, Video for Windows had three key aspects:
software developers to play or manipulate digital video
in their own applications; a suite of software for playing and editing digital video. VfW software suite consisted of:
- Media Player
- VidCap
- VidEdit
- BitEdit
- PalEdit
- WaveEdit
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 of
beta version along with the second beta of Internet Explorer 3.[2] ActiveMovie was released as a free download, either standalone or bundled with Internet Explorer. ActiveMovie, however, did not support video capture. Video for Windows was still used for video capture until the release of Windows Driver Model
capture drivers, which only started to become popular in 2000.
Video for Windows became an issue in a lawsuit
In March 1997, Microsoft announced that ActiveMovie would become part of DirectX 5,[9] and around July started referring to it as DirectShow.[10]
Version history
| Release date | Version | Description |
|---|---|---|
| November 1992 | Video for Windows 1.0 | First public release. Including Microsoft Video1 codecs.
|
| November 1993[11] | Video for Windows 1.1 | Added Cinepak codec. 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 included Indeo 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 with Windows NT 3.5 and later |
| August 1995 | Video for Windows 95 | Bundled with Windows 95 |
| July 1996 | ActiveMovie 1.0 | The successor of Video for Windows. Added support for MPEG-1 and QuickTime file formats. |
| March 1997 | DirectShow 1.0 | The successor of ActiveMovie. |
See also
References
- Future Publishing. May 1993: 61.)
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help - ^ "Microsoft Delivers ActiveMovie for Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0". News Center. Microsoft. July 16, 1996. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- ^ Markoff, John (February 10, 1995). "Intel and Microsoft Added to Apple Lawsuit". The New York Times.
- ^ Duncan, Geoff (February 13, 1995). "Apple Sues Intel, Microsoft - Again". TidBITS. TidBITS Publishing.
- ^ Mace, Michael (9 February 1995). "An Open Letter to the Computing Community". Apple Inc. Michigan State University. Archived from the original on 5 June 2001. Retrieved 5 June 2001.
- ^ Mace, Michael. "Second open letter from Apple". Apple Inc. Michigan State University. Archived from the original on 12 October 2000.
- CBS Interactive.
- ^ "Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement". FindLaw. August 5, 1997. Archived from the original on August 11, 2002.
- ^ "Microsoft Unveils First Unified Multimedia API Strategy". News Center. Microsoft. March 31, 1997. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
- ^ "Microsoft and Progressive Networks Collaborate on Streaming Media". News Center. Microsoft. July 21, 1997. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
- ^ Damore, Kelley (November 22, 1993). "Video for Windows developer tools speed playback". InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, inc. Retrieved 21 January 2020.