About the DVD-Video API Documentation

The DVD-Video API documentation provides information about using and understanding the API developed by Microsoft. There are some topics in the documentation that briefly describes some facets of DVD technology but this only serves to establish a common reference point for the rest of the documentation. It is not a primer or reference for the specific DVD technologies defined by the DVD Forum. The DVD Forum publishes the controlling specifications for all DVD technologies. The DVD-Video API documentation makes extensive references to the DVD Forum's specification entitled DVD Specifications for Read-Only Disc, Part 3, Video Specifications and relies heavily on the assumption that the application developer will have ready access to it. Parts of the DVD-Video API documentation will be very difficult to understand for developers who do not have access to the official specification, hereafter referred to as the DVD Forum Specification.

One specific documentation convention worth noting is the use of terms and acronyms. Both the DVD-Video API documentation and the DVD-Video APIs themselves make extensive use of the standard terms and acronyms defined in the DVD Forum Specification. Typically, the DVD-Video API documentation writes the full text for a term and then follows it with the standard acronym from the DVD Forum Specification. For example: Data for the program chain navigation control (PGC_NV_CTL) is stored in a DVD_NAV_CMD structure.

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