Windows Media ASF Viewer

Windows Media® ASF Viewer 9 Series is a tool for inspecting the contents of files (such as .asf. .wma, and .wmv file) to make sure they meet the requirements of the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) specification. -- Microsoft

Brief Introduction

This tool is very helpful for analyzing the contents of ASF files, it helps us to know the media structure and content easily. I was trying to encode WMV using Windows Media Format SDK, and this tool really helped me to verify the output content.

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Windows Media ASF Viewer 9 Series

How To: Extracting the embedded album art from a MP3 / WMA

I'm using Windows Media Sync Reader in Windows Media Format SDK to get the album art from id3 tag of a MP3, it can also get from a WMA.

Code Snippet:

#include <windows.h>
#include <wmsdk.h>
#include <atlbase.h>

#pragma comment(lib, "wmvcore.lib")

bool ExtractEmbeddedAlbumArt(LPCWSTR wszAudioFile)
{
  bool bOK = false;

  WM_PICTURE* pPicture = NULL;;

  do {

    CComPtr<IWMSyncReader> pIWMSyncReader;
    if(FAILED(WMCreateSyncReader(NULL, 0, &pIWMSyncReader))) break;

    if(FAILED(pIWMSyncReader->Open(wszAudioFile))) break;

    CComPtr<IWMHeaderInfo3> pIWMHeaderInfo3;
    if(FAILED(pIWMSyncReader->QueryInterface(&pIWMHeaderInfo3))) break;

    WMT_ATTR_DATATYPE wmtDataType = WMT_TYPE_BINARY;
    WORD wStreamNum = 0;
    WORD wLength = 0;
    if(FAILED(pIWMHeaderInfo3->GetAttributeByName(
      &wStreamNum, g_wszWMPicture, &wmtDataType, NULL, &wLength))) break;

    pPicture = (WM_PICTURE*)new BYTE[wLength];

    if(FAILED(pIWMHeaderInfo3->GetAttributeByName(
      &wStreamNum, g_wszWMPicture, &wmtDataType, (BYTE*)pPicture, &wLength))) break;

    bOK = true;

  } while(false);

  if(pPicture)
  {
    //
    // TODO: Save the picture or do something with it
    //

    delete [] (BYTE*)pPicture;
    pPicture = NULL;
  }

  return bOK;
}

Sample code for IWMMediaProps::GetMediaType()

// Get the required buffer size
DWORD cbType = 0;
pWMMediaProps->GetMediaType(NULL, &cbType);

// Get media type
WM_MEDIA_TYPE* pType = (WM_MEDIA_TYPE*)new BYTE[cbType];
if(SUCCEEDED(pWMMediaProps->GetMediaType(pType, &cbType)))
{
  // Use media type here
  // ...
}

// Free buffer
// Should not use "delete [] pType", we have to cast it to (BYTE*) before delete it.
delete [] (BYTE*)pType;