Programming Microsoft DirectShow for Digital Video and Television (Pro-Developer)

I knew nothing about DirectShow before I read this book. This book helped me quickly gain enough knowledge to start creating programs that use DirectShow capabilities. Yes, all the information is in the SDK document. But my learning time would have been much longer if I were to start by reading SDK documents. The author has digested the document and selected a subset of information to create this book. The book is self-contained enough that I didn't need to read other documents to understand the example codes. It is a good first DirectShow book for DirectShow beginners.

I have to work with DShow for my job. This book is the only one available (afaik)... But it is awfully written.
Mark D. Pesce does not EXPLAIN anything, he just DESCRIBES a set of, more or less enhanced, SDK samples.
It is a shame.
I will read it from the start to the very end because I have to do so. I am really tired of this.

I bought this book several months ago but I've held off writing a review as I have been trying to learn DirectShow.

It is not exactly just the SDK documentation in a paper binding but it isn't a whole lot more either. Most people trying to how to use DirectShow will probably buy this book anyway and they probably should: it is at least better than nothing. But don't get your hopes up.

My biggest gripe is that at least one of the examples in this book which does not come directly from the SDK sample programs doesn't seem to actually work. It compiles, and it runs, but it just doesn't display anything.

I wanted to read more about the new VMR9, but the book disappointed me with the thin coverage of VMR9 and videoplayback in general. I guess the book is all right on the topics filters, video editing and video caption.

I wanted to like this book - mostly because I really needed a book covering some of the problems I was having with DirectShow. The company I work for has DirectShow as the core component of their customer-facing software. I wasn't brought in to work on that part of it, but it quickly fell under my umbrella. I had no DirectShow experience, so I turned to the SDK docs and looked for a few books.

Well I have to say that if it wasn't for the SDK docs I would have been sunk. Both this book and Programming Direct Show have been real losers. This is better than the other book, but that isn't saying much.

Like previous posters I was disappointed by the audio. I have to support file playback, streaming, and control of a tv card through my interface. Its not rocket science, but the dearth of material on controlling tv cards in this book made it all but useless to me. The same material exists in the same form on MS DirectShow docs - the author added next to nothing.

I did give it 2 stars because sometimes it is nice to have the SDK documentation - with a little extra - to read when you are away from the computer. The author however should be ashamed for putting out such a cut-n-paste effort, pathetic.