Video for Windows was a suite of video playing and editing software introduced by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

in 1992. A runtime version for viewing videos only was made available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, which then became an integral component of Windows 95. Video for Windows was mostly replaced by the July 1996 release of

ActiveMovie ActiveMovie was the immediate ancestor of Windows Media Player 6.x, and was a streaming media technology now known as DirectShow, developed by Microsoft to replace Video for Windows. ActiveMovie allows users to view media streams, whether distri ...

, later known as

DirectShow DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's ea ...

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

filed a lawsuit in 1994 alleging theft of several thousand lines of QuickTime source code to improve the software. The case was settled in 1997, when Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser over Netscape, and in exchange, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office and other software for

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

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 Apple Computer's QuickTime technology, which added digital video to the Macintosh platform. Costing around $200, the product included editing and

encoding In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

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:

Audio Video Interleave Audio Video Interleave (also Audio Video Interleaved and known by its initials and filename extension AVI, usually pronounced ), is a proprietary multimedia container format and Windows standard introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part ...

(AVI), a container file format designed to store digital video; an application programming interface (API) that allowed 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

, later known as

. It was first released as a

beta version A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

along with the second beta of Internet Explorer 3. ActiveMovie was released as a free download, either standalone or bundled with

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...

. ActiveMovie, however, did not support

video capture Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera, DVD player, or television tuner—to digital video and sending it to local storage or to external circuitry. The resulting digital data ar ...

. 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

filed in December 1994 against

San Francisco Canyon Company San Francisco Canyon Company was a software development company that was contracted by Apple Computer in 1992 to port the QuickTime technology to Microsoft Windows. They made their first release of ''QuickTime for Windows'' in November 1992. In Ju ...

and in 1995 against

and Intel alleging theft of several thousand lines of QuickTime source code to improve the performance of Video for Windows. This lawsuit was ultimately settled in 1997, when Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser over Netscape; in exchange, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office and other software for

for the next 5 years, and purchase $150 million of non-voting Apple stock. In March 1997, Microsoft announced that ActiveMovie would become part of the DirectX 5, and around July started referring to it as

Version history

References

{{Microsoft APIs Computer-related introductions in 1992 Microsoft Windows multimedia technology Multimedia frameworks Discontinued Windows components

Overview

Version history

See also

References