Can I work with live sources and professional video I/O?

Yes. The SDK documentation includes APIs for initializing input and output devices. You can enumerate available devices, select them by index or name, configure input/output lines, and set device-specific properties.

What source types can I add to a playlist?

MPlaylist can handle live sources, hardware devices, streams, mp:// links, and regular media files. The API supports adding, removing, reordering playlist items, and getting the current playback position.

Does the SDK support modern streaming protocols?

Yes. The documentation covers SRT, RIST, RTP/DVB, Icecast, MPTS, WebRTC, and NDI. For example, SRT supports caller and listener modes, with settings such as latency and passphrase configured directly in the URL.

Can I use GPU acceleration for decoding, processing, and encoding?

Yes. The documentation explains how to select GPUs for decoding, processing, and encoding. For encoding, supported hardware options include NVIDIA NVENC H.264, Intel QuickSync HW H.264, and AMD AMF H.264.

Can I add HTML5 graphics or web overlays to video?

Yes. The HTML5 Overlay plugin works with both MPlatform and MFormats SDKs. It can load local pages or web URLs, set overlay position and size, simulate mouse and keyboard input, and run JavaScript.

Medialooks Video SDK

A development toolkit for building professional video applications such as broadcast systems

CompleteIt provides APIs for video ingest, playout, mixing, streaming, and automation, allowing developers to integrate video functionality without building a full video pipeline from scratch.
Designed for .NET, C++ and Delphi teams working on Windows-based video products.

.NET Framework .NET Core C++ Delphi Windows

Try Video SDK Best for developers who want to see
it running on their stack

Dev teams

Prototype in a day, ship in weeks

You need working code fast. Video SDK gives you ready-made APIs so your team spends time building product logic — not a video pipeline from scratch.

Code samples for every use case — ingest, playout, mixing, record
Fully functional trial, no card required
Save 150–200 hours vs. building your own pipeline

Start free trial →

System integrators

Reduce risk on complex, long-term pipelines

You’re building production systems for clients. You need proven broadcast I/O, professional hardware support and a vendor who understands your SLAs.

AJA, Blackmagic, BlueFish, Deltacast — supported out of the box
Architecture review and integration support from our engineers

Talk to an engineer →

What you can build

Three workflows, two SDKs, one Video platform

Each scenario maps to concrete SDK components and plugins — so you know exactly what you’re getting before writing a line of code.

Playout & automation

Build a channel-in-a-box, playlist server or automated graphics workflow — with professional I/O and emergency recovery built in.

Playlist automation & scheduling
Video mixing & transitions
Emergency encoding recovery
HLS / RTMP / SRT output
CG graphics, HTML5 overlay (plugins)

Best fit: MPlatform SDK + HTML5 Overlay

Ingest & recording

Capture multiple SDI/NDI/IP sources, normalize loudness on the fly and record to MXF, MOV or MP4 with crash recovery.

Multi-source capture (SDI, NDI, IP)
MXF, MOV, MP4 recording
Audio normalization — EBU R128, ITU-R BS.1770
GPU-accelerated encoding & decoding
Closed Captions & SCTE-35 (plugin)

Best fit: MFormats Expert or Ultimate + Closed Captions plugin

Replay & time‑shift

Add instant replay, delayed monitoring or multi-camera time-shift to your application without building a separate buffer engine.

Ring-buffer ingest with reader sessions
Independent playback positions per session
Multi-camera synchronized replay
Marker-based clip extraction
One ingest → multiple outputs simultaneously

Best fit: MFormats Ultimate or MPlatform

Plugins

Extend your app as you grow

Plugins add advanced capabilities to both MFormats and MPlatform without changing your core code. Each is licensed separately.

Character Generator

Static and animated text/graphics overlay. Included in MPlatform.

Use case: lower thirds, tickers, scoreboards in playout

Learn more →

HTML5 Overlay

Render browser-based graphics via JS and WebGL directly onto the stream.

Use case: CMS-driven overlays for sports, esports, news

Learn more →

Chroma Key

GPU-accelerated green screen with advanced spill suppression.

Use case: virtual studios, weather sets, remote talent

Learn more →

Streaming Pack

SRT and DVB-compatible streaming, compatible with professional hardware.

Use case: OTT delivery, satellite uplinks, managed IP networks

Learn more →

Closed Captions & SCTE

Ingest, process and pass through captions and SCTE-35 ad markers.

Use case: accessibility compliance, ad insertion triggers

Learn more →

ST 2110 Compatibility Pack

SMPTE ST 2110 AV-over-IP sources and destinations.

Use case: large facility integrations, IP-native infrastructure

Learn more →

ASIO Device Support

Low-latency audio I/O via ASIO-compatible professional hardware.

Use case: studio-grade audio in ingest, playout and contribution

Learn more →

Unreal Engine Media I/O

Send and receive video between Unreal Engine and the SDK pipeline.

Use case: virtual production, XR stages, real-time 3D graphics

Learn more →

xMediaEngine

A shared, time-addressed media history for independent live preview, delayed review, event clips and multiple outputs. Feed it once from MFormats or MPlatform, then let each reader work at its own position.

Use case: event replay, time-shifted monitoring, archive and stream output

Learn more →

Where to start

Find your starting point

Use this as a starting point — our engineers can validate your architecture.
Talk to an engineer →

Playout & automation

Ingest & recording

Replay & time‑shift

Smaller dev team

Playout & automation

MPlatform SDK

Built-in playlist & mixing logic. Start with sample app, customise from there.

Ingest & recording

MFormats Expert

File recording + audio normalization. Quick to prototype with code samples.

Replay & time‑shift

MFormats Ultimate

xMedia Dest included. Ring buffer + reader sessions — no separate delay engine needed.

Broadcast vendor / SI

Playout & automation

MPlatform SDK

Channel-in-a-box pipelines with CG, emergency recovery & multi-output.

Ingest & recording

MFormats Ultimate

Multi-channel capture, MXF, ST 2110 and full hardware card support.

Replay & time‑shift

MPlatform + xMediaEngine

Event replay, time-shifted review, and independent outputs from shared media history.

Choose your API level

MFormats SDK vs MPlatform SDK

Both SDKs share the same engine and support all plugins. The difference is how much of the pipeline you want to own.

MFormats SDK

Low-level API — full control over every pipeline step

Feature-driven: build exactly what your product needs

Ingest, transcode, analyse, process, integrate

3 tiers: Pro, Expert, Ultimate

Download MFormats →

MPlatform SDK

High-level API — broadcast business scenarios built in

Business-driven: playout, ingest, virtual studio, CG

Fastest path to a shippable broadcast product

Character Generator included

Download MPlatform →

Full feature matrix

What’s included in each tier

Feature	MFormats Pro	MFormats Expert	MFormats Ultimate	MPlatform (decoder or encoder libs are required)
RTMP, UDP, RTSP, HLS support	✓	✓	✓	✓
NDI support	✓	✓	✓	✓
Capture and playback devices support	✓	✓	✓	✓
WebRTC support	—	✓	✓	✓

Mixing of different sources	✓	✓	✓	✓
Video transitions	✓	✓	✓	✓
Playlist automation	—	—	—	✓
Video mixing automation	—	—	—	✓

GPU-powered video encoding and decoding	—	✓	✓	✓
GPU-powered video processing	—	—	✓	✓
Audio normalization (EBU R128, ITU-R BS.1770)	—	—	✓	✓
Emergency encoding recovery	—	✓	✓	✓

MOV, TS, MP4, etc. support	✓	✓	✓	✓
MXF	—	✓	✓	✓
Timeshifting engine	—	✓	✓	✓

Text and graphics overlay	Only simple functionality. For professional overlay the Character Generator is required.	Only simple functionality. For professional overlay the Character Generator is required.	Only simple functionality. For professional overlay the Character Generator is required.	Character Generator is included.
HTML5 graphics overlay engine	With the HTML5 Overlay Plugin	With the HTML5 Overlay Plugin	With the HTML5 Overlay Plugin	With the HTML5 Overlay Plugin
ChromaKey engine	With the Chroma Key plugin	With the Chroma Key plugin	With the Chroma Key plugin	With the Chroma Key plugin

SRT and DVB-compatible streaming support	With the Streaming Pack	With the Streaming Pack	With the Streaming Pack	With the Streaming Pack
Closed Captions and SCTE triggers	With the Closed Captions lib	With the Closed Captions lib	With the Closed Captions lib	With the Closed Captions lib
SMPTE ST 2110	With the ST 2110 Compatibility Pack	With the ST 2110 Compatibility Pack	With the ST 2110 Compatibility Pack	With the ST 2110 Compatibility Pack

New in Ultimate & MPlatform

xMediaEngine: shared, time-addressed media streams for replay, review and multi-output workflows

xMediaEngine is the engine of xMedia inside the Video SDK, built into the top tiers (MPlatform and MFormats Ultimate) as a COM library for Windows x64 applications.

Feed it frames from MFormats or MPlatform once. It keeps a bounded history of raw and encoded media, addressed by time. Your application then attaches as many independent readers and destinations as the workflow needs. It works alongside your existing SDK sources, writers and MDelay.

One feed, independent readers

Live view, delayed program, review and analysis each read the same history at their own position.

Encode once, deliver many

One H.264/AAC stream set feeds an MP4 archive, a TS file and MPEG-TS over UDP. A compatible destination needs no extra encoder.

Clips from before the trigger

Cut event clips that begin in the retained history and end after the trigger, while the archive keeps recording.

Cross-platform xMedia SDK

C++, C# and Python on Windows, Linux and macOS. A separate product. xMedia SDK →

Available in: MFormats Pro MFormats Expert MFormats Ultimate ✓ MPlatform ✓

Eleven ready-to-run C# sample applications with source code, for MFormats and for MPlatform, show every workflow on this page. To try xMediaEngine, request a test license from our support team. Request a test license →

xMediaEngine — use cases

What you can build with xMediaEngine

01 — Replay & event clips

Save the seconds before and after a goal, alarm or operator action

Event clips that begin before the trigger and end after it, read from the same encoded history
Overlapping clip requests while the main archive keeps recording
Segmented archive — the next named file starts while ingest continues
Tag moments with metadata, search them by exact criteria and review the picture

Sample: Replay Recorder, Metadata Review

02 — Live review & time-shift

Look back without stopping the live view

Pause, step and scrub a recent picture while capture continues
Delayed audio/video confidence output with a separate review reader
Two feeds reviewed at a declared event time, with linked controls
Live break rehearsal — planned against actual cues and returns

Sample: Time-shift Monitor, Buffered Output, Multi-feed Review

03 — One encode, several outputs

Record, archive and deliver from one stream set

MP4 archive, TS file and MPEG-TS over UDP from one H.264/AAC encode
Archive and editorial proxy profiles from one ingest, with visible lineage
Several raw profiles from one source for independent consumers
FFmpeg video and audio filter graphs inside SDK conversion

Sample: Replay Recorder, Archive and Proxy, Format Fan-out

04 — Monitoring & inspection

Watch the signal and go back to what you flagged

Black, freeze and silence monitoring, with findings linked to the retained picture
Primary and backup feeds monitored, each with its own history and incidents
Compressed contribution cache — share packet history, make copies, decode a review picture
Responsive live preview while analysis runs on its own reader

Sample: Signal Inspector, Continuity Guard, Packet Cache

Every workflow is a ready-to-run C# sample for MFormats and for MPlatform, with source code. Available in MFormats Ultimate and MPlatform.

What customers say

Teams that ship faster with Video SDK

Saved months of engineering

“We calculated the engineering time it would take to build it ourselves and compared that with the license price — the better option was just getting the license.”

Pim de Witte — Medal

Built: ingest & recording pipeline

Unified multi-vendor integration

“MFormats SDK gives us a consistent interface to different manufacturers — always the same kind of video and audio streams, independent of the source.”

Markus Zeppenfeld — Christie Digital

Built: multi-vendor ingest & playout integration

Immediate format coverage

“Any file type we could throw at it, Medialooks already had the capability. Immediately upon integrating the SDK, we had a comprehensive list of formats we support.”

Ken Frommert — ENCO Systems

Built: playout automation & ingest

Focus on product, not plumbing

“I don’t want to prepare the pasta itself. I just want to use it as an ingredient — the main job as a developer is building the sauce, not the pipeline.”

Prasad Ramassamy — MultiCAM Systems

Built: live production & replay workflows

Ready to start building?

Tell us what you’re building — playout, ingest, replay or something unique — and we’ll show you how Medialooks saves months of development.

Download Video SDK Talk to an engineer

Book a call → See documentation →

Choose MFormats SDK if you need low-level control over ingest, playback, processing, encoding, and custom pipeline logic. Choose MPlatform SDK if you need ready-made broadcast workflows such as playout, ingest, playlist automation, CG, and virtual studio scenarios.