Audio, video, and camera

This article provides an index of development features that are related to scenarios involving audio, video, and camera in Windows apps.

Note

The Windows App SDK currently does not provide APIs related to audio, video, and camera scenarios.

Windows OS features

Windows 10 and later OS releases provide a wide variety of APIs related to audio, video, and camera scenarios for apps. These features are available via a combination of WinRT and Win32 (C++ and COM) APIs provided by the Windows SDK.

WinRT APIs

The following articles provide information about features available via WinRT APIs provided by the Windows SDK.

Article	Description
Audio, video, and camera	Learn about development scenarios that involve photos, videos, or audio in your apps.
Camera	Learn about how to use the camera or microphone to capture photos, video, or audio.
Media playback	Learn about how to play back audio and video in your apps.
Visual layer	The Visual layer provides a high performance, retained-mode API for graphics, effects and animations, and is the foundation for all UI across Windows devices.
XAML platform	Describes the XAML language and concepts to apps that use a WinRT XAML-based UI, including XAML UI components provided by Windows 10 and later as well as WinUI.

Win32 (C++ and COM) APIs

The following articles provide information about features available via Win32 (C++ and COM) APIs provided by the Windows SDK.

Article	Description
Audio and video	Learn about features for integrating audio and video into your apps.
Graphics and gaming	Learn about features involving graphics, gaming, and imaging.
DirectX	Learn about how to use DirectX APIs to create games and other high-performance multimedia apps using 2D and 3D graphics.
Direct2D	Direct2D is a hardware-accelerated, immediate-mode, 2D graphics API that provides high performance and high-quality rendering for 2-D geometry, bitmaps, and text.
Direct3D	Direct3D is a low-level API for drawing primitives with the rendering pipeline, or for performing parallel operations with the compute shader.
GDI	The Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is a low-level graphics API that enables apps to use two-dimensional vector graphics, imaging, and typography.
GDI+	GDI+ improves on GDI by adding new features and by optimizing existing features.

.NET features

The .NET SDK also provides APIs related to audio, video, and camera scenarios for WPF and Windows Forms apps.

Article	Description
Graphics (WPF)	Learn about support for multimedia, vector graphics, animation, and content composition in WPF apps.
Multimedia (WPF)	Learn about integrating audio and video into your WPF apps.
Graphics and drawing (Windows Forms)	Learn how to create graphics, draw text, and manipulate graphical images in Windows Forms apps.
SoundPlayer class (Windows Forms)	Learn how to include sounds in your Windows Forms applications.