I just wanted to pay my respects. The entry by glynor on DirectShow was an "Aha moment" for me, back in the MC12 days when I was new to the HTPC and codecs. I do not exaggerate when I say that it changed my life forever.
Retiring the bookmark from my Chrome now.
Its funny.
I've read about that guide a few other places, just lurking, on the Internets at large. I remember one guy saying something like: "Some guy wrote this guide on codecs and stuff over here (link). It is specific to some other player, but it is pretty good and you can just follow most of that." Junk like that, here and there.
Still #4 on
the Google if you search for "directshow playback", right below three MSDN results. I think it was #1 for a time.
It would be nice if someone used the framework and made a new, updated edition, referencing all the great work that has been done by madshi and nev.* But... Red October made me really, really lazy in this regard. I knew all that crazy figuring it out stuff because you had to crazy figure it out to get anything done back in those days (and my job made me deal with it constantly, transcoding things from one format to another). I just haven't been following it as well as I could...
Because I don't have to anymore.
A bunch of people here really have the knowledge, but I don't know if they have the motivation or time (or writing skills, frankly) to do it justice.
* But maybe keep my old version archived, for old-timey's sake.