[.ca] Programming Microsoft DirectShow for Digital Video and ... (ISBN 0735618216)

Not exactly "just the SDK" but still not great:
I bought this book several months ago but I've held off writing a review as I have been trying to learn DirectShow. It is not exactly just the SDK documentation in a paper binding but it isn't a whole lot more either. Most people trying to how to use DirectShow will probably buy this book anyway and they probably should: it is at least better than nothing. But don't get your hopes up. My biggest gripe is that at least one of the examples in this book which does not come directly from the SDK sample programs doesn't seem to actually work. It compiles, and it runs, but it just doesn't display anything.

Needed to like it, but....:
I wanted to like this book - mostly because I really needed a book covering some of the problems I was having with DirectShow. The company I work for has DirectShow as the core component of their customer-facing software. I wasn't brought in to work on that part of it, but it quickly fell under my umbrella. I had no DirectShow experience, so I turned to the SDK docs and looked for a few books. Well I have to say that if it wasn't for the SDK docs I would have been sunk. Both this book and Programming Direct Show have been real losers. This is better than the other book, but that isn't saying much. Like previous posters I was disappointed by the audio. I have to support file playback, streaming, and control of a tv card through my interface. Its not rocket science, but the dearth of material on controlling tv cards in this book made it all but useless to me. The same material exists in the same form on MS DirectShow docs - the author added next to nothing. I did give it 2 stars because sometimes it is nice to have the SDK documentation - with a little extra - to read when you are away from the computer. The author however should be ashamed for putting out such a cut-n-paste effort, pathetic.

Too little on VMR:
I wanted to read more about the new VMR9, but the book disappointed me with the thin coverage of VMR9 and videoplayback in general. I guess the book is all right on the topics filters, video editing and video caption.

Just the SDK Docs in Paperback:
This is a pathetic book. I have very little respect for any author that would produce this kind of trash. This is just somebody trying to make money because there are essentially no books available for DirectX. Throw together some "stuff" from the SDK and call it a book. Real pathetic Microsoft Press, I expected you to care more about your reputation than this. The DirectX SDK docs do a better job than this book except that it is not as convenient as a real book that you can flip through. I do not understand how it got such good reviews, they must not have actually read the DirectX SDK docs. I was eagerly awaiting this books arrival hoping the examples would be substinative, but they were lame, incomplete, and no more helpful than the FREE samples and docs that came with the SDK. To say this book covers "all the details of DirectShow" is just not accurate. Assuming this book was useful, it would take 3 or 4 books like this one to provide "all the details". This book is very high level (general). Do not expect the examples to show you how to do anything complicated. Also, this book was supposed to be about Digital Video and Television. Last time I watched a DVD movie or TV, the movie/show would have been worthless without the audio. Yet, this book only has 14 pages dedicated to audio out of its total 414 pages. There is also about 20 other pages sprinkled around (and that's being generous). Why is this important, because coding audio is different than coding video, and any other DirecShow task. Sure, it's COM, so it's just another set of interfaces, but it is just that, another set or at least it is using the same set of interfaces differently. Same goes for other DirectShow tasks. Even the treatment of Video is very general. I remember when Windows 3.1 and OS/2 (both from Microsoft) first came out. Programming Windows and OS/2 was considered very difficult and specialized because the documentation/books were few and not in depth. Well, now programming Windows and even OS/2 is just expected from even the novice programmer. Why? Because there are many books from many people, and Microsoft provides tons of information and real examples, and where examples are lacking, 3rd parties fill the need. That is simply not the case with DirectShow. True enough the DirectX SDK is pretty good for an SDK, but this book does nothing more than provide an incomplete hard copy of part of the SDK. For crying out loud, the following is all over his example code "This code is also stolen from the DirectX SDK". So, just read the SDK don't waste your money on this book. It might be better than no book, but marginally.

Excatly What I Was Looking For.:
This is a great book. It covers all the specifics of DirectShow and helps you get going on some pretty complicated projects. What it doesnt do is go into any media specific problems that you may want to do (like VBI or CC Decoding) but it will help you get your hand on the approrpiate stream. It focuses mostly on capturing AVIs from various devices and provides more support than the MSDN site. Some of the examples in the book don't work easily and take some convincing (even after i resolved the hard coded include & link paths problems in the example code on the included CD. FYI--install the DirectX SDK in its default directory to save you much time). Moreso, the provided 'Direct Show Filter Wizard' just didn't work at all. I am running .NET 2003 and its obvious .NET 2002 was out during the writing of this book. Though I feel the samples shouldn't be outdated so quickly. At the least, there should some updated samples for download (which I could not find at the time of writing this review). That said, the book did answer all my questions (regardless of the included sample problems) and is definatly the book to get for DirectShow programming and describes the mystery that is the MSDN documentation.