Device Types
[The feature associated with this page, MCI, 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 It has been superseded by MediaPlayer.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 MCI, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]
MCI recognizes a basic set of device types. A device type is a set of MCI drivers that share a common command set and are used to control similar multimedia devices or data files. Many MCI commands, such as open (MCI_OPEN), require you to specify a device type.
The following table lists the defined device types. The current implementation of MCI includes command sets for a subset of these devices.
| Device type | Constant | Description |
|---|---|---|
| cdaudio | MCI_DEVTYPE_CD_AUDIO | CD audio player |
| dat | MCI_DEVTYPE_DAT | Digital-audio tape player |
| digitalvideo | MCI_DEVTYPE_DIGITAL_VIDEO | Digital video in a window (not GDI-based) |
| other | MCI_DEVTYPE_OTHER | Undefined MCI device |
| overlay | MCI_DEVTYPE_OVERLAY | Overlay device (analog video in a window) |
| scanner | MCI_DEVTYPE_SCANNER | Image scanner |
| sequencer | MCI_DEVTYPE_SEQUENCER | MIDI sequencer |
| vcr | MCI_DEVTYPE_VCR | Video-cassette recorder or player |
| videodisc | MCI_DEVTYPE_VIDEODISC | Videodisc player |
| waveaudio | MCI_DEVTYPE_WAVEFORM_AUDIO | Audio device that plays digitized waveform files |
In this document, the names of device types are bold. Device-type names are used with the command-string interface. Device-type constants are used with the command-message interface.