VBI Surface Allocator

[The feature associated with this page, DirectShow, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine, and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation. Those features have been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer, IMFMediaEngine and Audio/Video Capture in Media Foundation instead of DirectShow, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

The VBI Surface Allocator controls the allocation of VBI buffers in analog television graphs with hardware video port capture scenarios. With devices such as the Bt829 decoder, the frame buffer may contain multiple VBI capture buffers that are accessed via a proprietary hardware-based mechanism known generically as a Video Port. The VBI Surface Allocator filter connects downstream from the capture filter and has no output pin. The filter works closely with the Overlay Mixer (via DirectDraw) to perform coordinated operations on the hardware video port, utilizing the same limited SVGA frame buffer memory.

Label Value
Filter Interfaces IBaseFilter
Input Pin Media Types MEDIATYPE_Video, MEDIASUBTYPE_VPVBI
Input Pin Interfaces IKsPropertySet
Output Pin Media Types MEDIATYPE_NULL, MEDIASUBTYPE_NULL. (Nothing is ever connected to the output pin.)
Output Pin Interfaces Not applicable.
Filter CLSID CLSID_VBISurfaces
Property Page CLSID No property page.
Executable vbisurf.ax
Merit MERIT_NORMAL
Filter Category CLSID_LegacyAmFilterCategory

 

DirectShow Filters