Rating: 
Summary: Short on technical content. Too light. Too dated.
Review: This text was published in 1999 and is accompanied by a CD of code and utilities. I wouldn't advise installing the CD in an XP environment, but seems fine under 2000, etc. Download the latest Windows Media SDK from Microsoft if using XP. While the book has lots of interesting overview material, very little is tackled in depth. In fact, much of the book seems like padding around a few technical chunks. The programming content of the book is in chapter 9 and deals exclusively with automating various aspects of Windows Media (e.g. Windows Media Encoder). In this repsect, the title is misleading. Personally, I was very disappointed to see so little on .avi. The specification of an avi file was only briefly described (you have to go to the web to get avi information of any quality). There is simply no good reason for failing to detail avi. Why Micorsoft doesn't devote a chunk of web pages to .avi is simply beyond me. The authors of this text mention avi only to dismiss it and argue for asf as the better standard. The comparison between avi and asf is nicely arranged but surprisingly no avi or asf parser is discussed, despite RIFF parsers having been around for years. A whole lyer of background information was simply not there on the origins of these standards. The two pages on codecs (229-230) are grossly inadequate and give a flimsy overview of developments. For instance, the Intel Indeo codecs are not mentioned at all despite their success with avi compression. My overall impression is that the book is largely dated by the advent of XP media technologies and egregiously short on meaty technical detail. Unfortunately Microsoft haven't yet produced a suitable programmer's guide to windows media programming. So if you are really stuck and can't spent a few hours conducting intelligent web searches for resources, this book will meet some of your requirements. In the final analysis, however, this book is poor value for its price.
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