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AV/C Client Drivers

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Microsoft provides support for the IEEE Audio/Video Control (AV/C) protocol in Windows XP and later operating systems. The AV/C protocol defines methods for issuing commands to and sending responses from subunits on AV/C-compliant devices. You can control subunits on devices that conform to the AV/C protocol across the IEEE 1394 serial bus if you write a driver to support the subunit hardware. Note that you do not need to write a subunit driver to support tape subunits because Microsoft supplies two other drivers for this functionality, Msdv.sys and Mstape.sys.

To support the AV/C protocol, Microsoft supplies the following two drivers:

  • Avc.sys

  • Avcstrm.sys

Avc.sys is a function driver that provides support to establish and manage subunit/unit plug connections. Avcstrm.sys is a lower-filter driver that adds support to assist with streaming the following specific data formats:

  • Standard definition digital video (SDDV, the 61883-2 specification)

  • MPEG2-TS (the 61883-4 specification)

Depending on the functionality of your device, you can use the optional support provided in Avcstrm.sys to assist with streaming SDDV and/or MPEG2-TS data. If Avcstrm.sys does not support a format used by your device, then you can use the connection management and data streaming functionality exposed by 61883.sys, which is located lower in the driver stack.

Subunit drivers should follow the Windows Driver Model (WDM) architecture. Subunit drivers can use either the Stream class interface or the AVStream interface. AVStream is the preferred interface for developing a subunit driver. The Stream class interface is obsolete, and Microsoft has discontinued its further development. For more information about these two interfaces, see AV/C Kernel-Streaming Interface and KS Proxy Plug-ins.

For more information about how to write an AV/C subunit driver, see AV/C Overview. For more information about how to use Avcstrm.sys to assist streaming data, see AV/C Streaming Overview.

AV/C protocol support is built on the IEEE 1394 driver stack and the IEC-61883 standards. For more information about the IEC-61883 driver stack, see IEC-61883 Client Drivers.