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Windows Media Metafile Reference

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[The feature associated with this page, Windows Media Player SDK, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer. MediaPlayer has been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer instead of Windows Media Player SDK, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

This reference documents elements and file name extensions for Windows Media metafiles. The reference is divided into the following sections.

Section Description
Windows Media Metafile Elements Reference Documents metafile elements, including definitions, attributes and their values, and special conditions related to each element.
File Name Extensions Documents metafile file name extensions with rules and guidelines on their use.

 

Windows Media metafiles are text files that provide information about a file stream and its presentation. The metafiles are based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) syntax, and are made up of various XML-like elements with their tags and attributes. Each element defines a setting or action for streaming media.

There are two sets of element tags available for metafiles. Client-side metafiles have one set of elements, and server-side metafiles have another set of elements.

If an element tag does not have any child elements (those that modify or are contained within another element), a single slash character (/) can be used at the end of the opening tag in place of a closing tag. If child elements do not appear between the opening and closing tag for an element, they are not child elements for that element, and are ignored or cause an error in the syntax of the metafile.

About Windows Media Metafiles

Windows Media Metafile Guide

Windows Media Metafiles