First frame of an compressed AVI

[Jurgen Eidt 0]

Does anyone know how to get the first frame of an compressed AVI? Using the AVI-APIs the AVIStreamGetFrameOpen is returning a NULL when the video stream is compressed. Works fine for non compressed videos. I also tried the suggestion from Jung Jinhyuck ( http://www.codeproject.com/audio/avitowmv.asp ) which looked very promising. Looks like the decompression is not done, but the same compressed AVI can be viewed with the Media player on the same machine. Thought the AVI-API could access the same decompressors. (Using WinXP and VC .NET) Thanks Jürgen

[Andrew Walker]

Use DirectShow, which is probably total overkill for one frame. You can make sure that the correct decompressors are in the graph using GraphEdit, I think an older version of DirectX (7 or 8?) may have even had a sample program for grabbing a single frame.

[Jurgen Eidt 0]

Thanks for your suggestion. I just wanted to give the icons in my listview a small preview of the AVI files from my camera :) Wouldn't introducing DirectShow to an app make a dependency on the DirectShow components installed on the system? For example I use the latest version of DirectShow but the system has an older version installed? Thanks Jürgen