does anyone here know what programming language WMV (windows media Video) is based on, or what programming language windows media player was based on? Also would it be the same for mpeg, avi, divx etc. I'm assuming it's based on C but i'm not sure.

P.S. im new to computer programming in case you couldnt tell.

Hi KrissKross. Welcome to GIDForums.

The video formats that you are talking about are all codec algorithms that can probably be compressed/decompressed in any programming langauge. The algorithms themselves are not based solely on any single language.

I would assume many of the players and utilities are probably programmed using C or C++ and you can probably find some good libraries for handling any of these codecs written in these languages.

Not sure if I answered your question or not, but hopefully you will stick around and let us know what it is you are diving into

cheers,
d

They aren't based on any programming language. They are, as dSmith implied, a data file. Any language (within reason) can read and decipher a graphics file. You just have to write the code to read the file in the format of the data.

Of course we can tell. That's why I've always wondered why noobs always tell us they're noobs. It usually quite apparent. ;-) It's almost like they wear their noobishness as a badge of honor -- like a freshman's propellar beanie! :-)

__________________

The 3 Laws of the Procrastination Society:
1) Never do today that which can be put off until tomorrow
2) Tomorrow never comes

Hi,
Window media player?? Like everyone stated, wmp is developed using c++. If you want to familiarize yourself of this kind of programming, I suggest you to learn MFC. With MFC, there is lots of useful library,ActiveX components to make your task easy. There is a simple wrapper class ,"MCIWnd" a window class for controlling multimedia devices. A library of functions, messages, and macros associated with MCIWnd provides a simple method to add multimedia playback or recording capabilities to your applications.

The MCIWnd Window class is very easy to use. By identifying a simple HWND member variable and assigning it to MCI window using a single function, you can create a control that plays any device that uses the media control interface (MCI) and gain support of any installed codec on your machine. These devices include Audio CDs, WAV Audios, MIDIs, and video devices with any supported codec.

Regards.

__________________
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, for free." Linus Torvalds

Thank you all very much, this is exactly what I wanted to know, and I will look into MFC, sounds like it could prove very usefull.

I wasn't sure wether I should say at first, So if i'm going into forbidden territory let me know. I'm not sure if you'r familiar with what DRM is (direct rights management) but basicaly it's something that companys put on WMA and WMV files to limit acces to the content. It forces you to obtain a key (you pay for it) for the file before you can watch it, and then you can only watch it for a certain amount of days/views before you have to pay again. Although sometimes it does allow you view the file infinetly, it prevents you from making CD's or copying it other computers.

Basicaly I got fed up with downloading wma's and wmv's from pay sites only to find i could only watch/listen to them for a certain time or couldnt copy them. I'm trying to design a program to somehow get past the protection, but first I'm trying find out what knowledge/skills I should have first, IE wether I should learn C, among other things.

I tried learning C twice in the past, and gave up when the book I was learning from appeared to be giving me false instructions (the programs I made with theyr instructions wouldn't work.) Currently I have come pretty profficient with Qbasic, but realis that it's a pretty constrictive language. I think I read somewhere it was designed for non-programers.

Anyway thanx for the help, and hopefully i'm not out of line discussing this here. Any further help is much appreciated. Thanx

Seems like youre try on something really way out of my leage.. To achive something like that, you at least need a strong understanding in windows programming. I don't know if youre trying to crack it or what, but if you are, it is rather impossible for a beginner. I think you also need to know some assembly..

My Advice: Don't ever do something like that. Its not gooood!
My Honest Advice: Go man. You can do it!

PS:/ I had done a pwd recovery program for my winzip file. I use it only if I lose my pwd. For personal use only!!!

__________________
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, for free." Linus Torvalds

Yep, times have changed. Now with the digital age they've found ways to prevent bootlegging they couldn't prevent before digital. And there's always someone trying to get around it...

Not really. It was designed to be a learning language. In it's day it was very good for that, but got replaced by Pascal for that purpose because of it's better structure.

If you're having a hard time learning C, for a while completely forget MFC exists. It's for high-level programming. IMHO, you need to get the basics learned first.

__________________

The 3 Laws of the Procrastination Society:
1) Never do today that which can be put off until tomorrow
2) Tomorrow never comes

That's quite a project, but I'm gonna be truthful: I hope you've a high expertise in cryptography and elliptic curve cryptography. Microsoft are far from stupid, they're hardly just gonna put a switch somewhere in the file, with the normal WMV data all there!

DRM comes in 2 breeds, types 1 & 2. Type 2 has been cracked already, Type 1 is supposedly simpler - but the guy who cracked the second wanted to prove a point, not to screw M$. There exists tools to unprotect both versions (I'm not going to post up names/links - 'technically' they're illegal and so would violate the T&Cs here, but do a Google), one does it on a very hands on way - plays a protected WMA file, captures the output and reencodes it as MP3, the second (Type 2 only) is a crack.

DRM protected files are encoded with a serial number tied to your machine & OS install, and is used as a basis for a key for encryption & decryption (public/private based). Then the WMA data is encrypted using this, I *think* it uses elliptic curve cryptography, but it also uses block cyphers (good oul DES) and hashing functions. Even data sent between DLLs is encoded so that one cannot peek at the interprocess communications. If the serial number of your machine changes, or becomes void somehow, the decryption key is lost and the file is lost! But I think M$ may have a backdoor to reissue a temporary licence or something, I dunno how it works.

Anyway, this is far from an easy job, playing around with the data structure of the WMA file in C. I'm 3 years into a Mathematical degree, elliptic curves are not terribly difficult, but you'd need a lot of time from scratch. I'm doing cryptography next year. But if you're up to it, good luck!

Do lots of Googling on "Remove WMA protection"
GF

Thanks for the help u Garth. I'm currently reading "handbook of applied cryptography" in prepartion for learning how to do Cryptanalysis, wich apparently is the art of cracking cryptography. The cryptography I'm reading about uses text as the media to be encrypted, unfortunatly I'm thinking crpytanalysis would be much harder when the encoded data is not text but rather a stream of meaningless numbers.

I was wondering though, do you have any idead what bit incription it is, ie 128 bit, 64 bit?