a) Microsoft’s interface for controlling multimedia devices such as a CD-ROM player or a video playback application.

b) A high-level control interface to multimedia devices and resource files that provides software applications with device-independent control of audio and video peripherals. MCI provides a standard command for playing and recording multimedia devices and resource files. MCI is a platformindependent layer between multimedia applications and system lower-level software. The MCI command set is extensible inasmuch as it can be incorporated in new systems via drivers and can support special features of multimedia systems or file formats. MCI includes commands like open, play, and close.