DirectShow's API is based on the COM model. MCI's API doesn't use COM. As such, the ability of the MCI to play a certain format does not prove, and cannot prove the presence of a respective registered DirectShow COM component with the same capability (as that would require a codec with a different public API, as you are already aware of, and something you cannot figure out by asking through MCI however nicely).DrShark wrote: 2021-03-12, 10:50 UTC For example, here on Windows 7 32-bit both VfW and DirectShow based Lister's players play e.g. *.mid files fine, so the question is whether they use the same codecs (but with different API to access them)?
Essentially your question cannot be answered generally, hypothetically only for each individual system setup based on some deeper analysis of the behinds and belows of the MCI and DirectShow components found on that individual machine. Or, in practical terms: You won't be able to know that.
Now, you can of course make assumptions of whether the support of some codec through MCI indicates the presence of an equivalent DirectShow codec. But this is essentially an assumption that is no better than just having a default file extension list of popular file types being supported by MCI hard-coded in TC.
