For playing transport stream files such as AVC(H.264) an additional mediasplitter should also be installed.

ffdshow can be configured to display subtitles, to enable or disable various built-in codecs, to grab screenshots, to enable keyboard control, and to enhance movies with increased resolution, sharpness, and many other post-processing video filters.

It has the ability to manipulate audio with effects like an equalizer, a Dolby decoder, reverb, Winamp DSP plugins, and more.

The first versions of ffdshow were published in May 2002, as an alternative to the DivX ;-) 3.11 and DivX 5.02 (which came bundled with Gator[6]) decoders of the time, and as a way to combine the speed and quality of MPlayer with popular Windows video players.

Development of ffdshow tryouts was discontinued in 2012 with users recommended to use LAV Filters instead.