Microsoft ActiveMovie: A New Media Architecture

The Desktop Revolution in production and postproduction has dramatically changed the way film and television programs are made, simultaneously reducing equipment cost and increasing operator efficiency. The enabling digital innovations by individual companies using standard computing platforms has come at a price - these custom implementations and closed solutions make sharing of media and hardware between applications difficult if not impossible. Microsoft's ActiveMovie” Streaming Media Architecture and Windows Driver Model provide the infrastructure for today's postproduction applications and hardware to truly become interoperable. This paper describes the architecture, supporting technologies, and their application in post production scenarios.