VB.Net & Your Sound Card

[Vitus]

I'm in a bit of a fix here... I'm programming in VB.Net Express and I'm writeing a media application. I have managed to get it to play MP3 files by using Windows media player DLL's. but i would like to be able to play all sorts of audio files. I beilieve that i must be able to send the sound card some sort of messege to do this. I dunno.

I dont know exactly which way i want to take this , but i want this application to be independent of others, I.E. i dont want the user to have to have WMP installed for it to work.

How do you go about playing such files as Wma's or MP3's?

~Vitus :cool:

[naps1saps]

I'm actually looking for something similar myself. I can however, partially answer your question... I think.

I believe in order for any application to play an audio file other than uncompressed wav's, the computer must either have the correct codec installed, or have a compatible .dll file to decrypt the compression algorithm and turn it into an uncompressed stream which is then passed on to the sound card for modulation/ sound making. So, in order for you to do what you want, you need to get the decryption .dll's of the formats you wish to play: wma, mp3, atrac, etc... At least I think it can be done that way. I'm not sure if the user must have the codecs installed in order for the program to work or if you can just run the codecs from the files. To get a better idea of what actually happens when a media file is played, download "graphedt" (no i for edit). This program allows you to load a file and represents the file as a tile. Then you would load a decryption codec from the installed codecs list which is another tile. Then you load your output hardware as another tile. Each tile has inputs and outputs. The user connects the tiles to form the data flow. If you get everything connected right, click the play button and you should hear music. I've used this program to encrypt video files with audio using FFdshow and FFdencoder. FFdshow has processing capabilities like amplification, eq, and video image editing.

If you need a codec pack for your player, see what you can do with the FFdshow codec if source is available.

Now... what I am wishing to do if someone knows how in standard vb.net if possible, is to play with wav samples to change modulation, pitch, etc... to figure out how digital sound works on computers. How do I load .wav files so I can affect the bytes of each sample, and how do I pass the stream on to the sound card for modulation?