Have you ever tried to produce live content simultaneously into more than one format using a single camera or capture board? Have you ever tried to launch Real Producer, trying to encode the live feed of your webcam while streaming it with Windows Media Encoder at the same time? Well, then you probably already know the result: Video devices cannot be used by more than one application at the same time. This is another limitation of the Video-for-Windows architecture - if an application is connected to a video capture device, it's "locked" and no other application can use it at the same time. Luckily, there is a solution.

VfWSplitter is an ActiveX control for connecting multiple capture/encoding filters to a single Video-for-Windows window. It overcomes the limitation of having only one application connected to a video capture device by splitting the window handle into up to 4 virtual window handles.

It provides easy to use interface for handle manipulation. The product is intended for for use with any ActiveX container (VB, ASP, Access, Delphi, etc.) and allows the creation of unique video applications.

You should look at VfWSplitter (together with @ctiVideo) if you need to:

• Use a single capture device to create multiple output formats (e.g. Windows Media and RealMedia streams);
• Use a single capture device to create multiple output files with the same format but different settings (e.g. two Windows Media format files with different resolutions and bitrates);
• Use a single capture device to use one format for live stream and another format for permanent backup;

Using these components you dramatically reduce the development cycle and the time-to-market of your multimedia application. You can re-use any of the sample code, available in our extensive samples library (click here to browse it) and virtually have your application running in several hours, as opposed to weeks or even months, if you decide to build the same functionality from scratch.

• Click here to browse the VfWSplitter 1.0 on-line documentation.
• Click here to download the windows help (chm) file.

• VfWSplitter Test GUI (VB6)

• Click here to browse the FAQ database.

1.0 March 11, 2002

• Original release;