Every so often there are tasks that need certain reference video or video/audio footage with specific properties: resolution, frame rate, frame accuracy with content identifying specific frame, motion in view, amount of motion which is “hard” for processing with encoder tuned for natural video, specific video and audio synchronization.
There is of course some content available, and sometimes it’s really nice:
However once in a while you need 59.94 fps and not 60, and another time you’d go with 50 so that millisecond time is well-aligned and every second has equal number of frames, then next time you need specific aspect ratio override and then you’d prefer longer clip to a short one.
I converted one of my sources for reference signal into DirectShow filters, which might be used to produce infinite signal, or otherwise they might be used to generate a file of specific format with specific properties.
The filters are Reference Video Source and Reference Audio Source, regular filters registered in a separate category (not virtual video/audio source devices – yet?), available for instantiation programmatically or in GraphStudioNext/GraphEdit.
The filters are in both 32- and 64-bit versions, with hardcoded properties (yet?): 1280×720@50 32-bit RGB for video and 16-bit PCM mono at 48 kHz for audio. Programmatically, however, the filters can be tuned flexibly using IAMStreamConfig::Format call:
- Video:
- Any resolution
- 32-bit RGB, top-to-bottom only (the filter internally uses Direct2D/WIC to generate the images)
- Any positive frame rate
- Aspect ratio can be overridden using
VIDEOINFOHEADER2format, e.g. to force SD video to be 4:3
- Audio:
- Any sample rate
- 16-bit PCM or 32-bit IEEE floating point format
- Mono
Video filter generates image sequence with properties burnt in, with frame number, 100ns time, time with frame number within second, and a circle with a sector filled to reflect current sub-second time. There is Uh/Oh text inside the circle at sharp second times and the background color is in continuous transition between colors.
Audio filter beeps every second during the first 100 ms of a second, with a tone different for every fifth and every tenth second.
Both filters support IAMStreamControl interface, and IAMStreamControl::StopAt method in particular, which allows to limit signal duration and be used for time accurate file creation.
This comes with a sample project that demonstrates ASF file generation for specific properties and duration. Output file generated by the sample is Output.asf.
ASF file format and WM ASF Writer are chosen for code brevity and to reference stock multiplexer. This has a downside that multiplexer re-scales video to profile’s resolution and frame rate, of course. Those interested in generation of their own content would use something like their favorite H.264 and AAC encoders with MP4 or MKV multiplexer perhaps. And a nicer output would look like Output.mp4 then.
A good thing about publishing these filters is that while preparing test project, I hit a thread safety bug in GDCL MP4 multiplexer, which is presumably present in all/most version of the mp4mux.dll out there: if filter graph is stopped at the time of video streaming, before reaching end-of-stream on video leg (which is often the case because upstream connection would be H.264 encoder having internal queue of frames draining then on worker threads processing stop request), multiplexer might generate a memory access violation trying to use NULL track object, which is already gone.
Download links
- Binaries:
- 32-bit:
DirectShowReferenceSource-Win32.dll - 64-bit:
DirectShowReferenceSource-x64.dll - Sample project
Generate: SVN, Trac - License: This software is free to use
- 32-bit: