We're going back to back with Multimedia Version 18 articles on The CodeProject. After showing how to create a powerful RTSP Server with only a few lines of code last month, now we're illustrating how easy it is to implement Microsoft Media Foundation Capture and Convert functionality with LEADTOOLS Version 18.

LEADTOOLS has a rich history of simplifying DirectShow application deployment with its award-winning Multimedia SDKs. Version 18 picks builds on that reputation and provides the same programmer-friendly interface and powerful features that developers can rely upon for years to come as Microsoft Media Foundation becomes more and more popular.

PDF is by far one of the most widely used and adopted file formats in the world. However, support is lacking among most SDKs, which generally only implement basic loading as raster and saving searchable text with OCR. Since 17.5, LEADTOOLS has suppported advanced PDF capabilities such as extraction of text, hyperlinks, bookmarks and metadata as well as updating, splitting and merging pages from existing PDF documents. In version 18, the LEADTOOLS PDF SDK is even more powerful and comprehensive with its new and improved support for native PDF annotations and drawing markups.

Native annotations are an important feature in document imaging, as it allows users to communicate with each other by writing comments and drawing shapes on top of the document without making any permanent changes. Here are some of the most important PDF Annotations features in LEADTOOLS Version 18:

Our marketing department's media team has produced a new video highlighting the new and improved features within the LEADTOOLS OCR Engine in Version 18, including Faster Recognition, Zonal and Full Page Recognition, Image Over Text PDF, Tables and Cells, Dithered Text and Underlined Text Recognition. Take a couple minutes to learn about these exciting features, and we hope you enjoy the video!

We plan on releasing more videos just like this one covering other major feature sets like HTML5, PACS, DICOM, Barcode and more. As always, we welcome any feedback and would love to know what you think about our new videos, and/or let us know what you'd like to see next.

Now that Version 18 has been out for a little over a month, we’ve received a lot of feedback about some of the features our customers are really excited about. This week I'm jumping into LEADTOOLS Multimedia Version 18, which is headlined by the addition of Media Foundation support and a new RTSP Server.

Media Foundation

LEAD Technologies has a strong record of keeping pace with the latest development platforms and technologies. Adding support for Microsoft Media Foundation is much more than just keeping up, it’s also a reflection of our commitment to making difficult development projects simple. In the same way that LEADTOOLS simplified and abstracted DirectShow application development, LEADTOOLS Multimedia SDKs now offer the same benefits for the new Microsoft Media Foundation framework with new components and transforms. Below is a list of controls, processors, codecs, multiplexers and demultiplexers that are supported in Microsoft Media Foundation: