Playing sound parallelly with System.Media.SoundPlayer.PlaySync() and AxWindowsMediaPlayer - winforms

Question

I have created a WinForm application which contains an AxWMPLib.AxMediaPlayer in which I play some videos. I also have to play some other custom sounds in a different thread. For this I used System.Media.SoundPlayer.PlaySync(). This thread plays couple of sound files sequentially in a loop. The problem is when I pause/stop the video the button event sounds are played fine. But when the video is running, sometimes some of the sound files are skipped. And it happens randomly.
Could anyone give some explanation about the problem and how to over come it. I mean how could I play the both sounds and video in parallel.
The video is playing in the UI thread and the other sounds are playing from different thread.Please check out the code bellow:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Threading;
using ElectroQ;
using ElectroQServer1.Entities;
using WMPLib;
using System.Media;
using System.Windows.Media;
namespace ElectroQServer1
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
Thread dbListenerThread;
IWMPPlaylist playlist;
//string[] tokenNumber = { "A001", "B002", "C003", "D004","E005", "F006", "G007","HAMB" };
//string[] counterNumber = { "01", "02", "03", "04", "05", "06", "07", "MB" };
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
//ResizeRedraw = true;
this.SetStyle(System.Windows.Forms.ControlStyles.DoubleBuffer, true);
this.WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized;
//this.FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.None;
//this.TopMost = true;
dbListenerThread = new Thread(RefreshQueueBoard);
dbListenerThread.Start();
}
/// <summary>
/// This method is used to prevent the flickering of the window.
/// </summary>
protected override CreateParams CreateParams
{
get
{
CreateParams cp = base.CreateParams;
cp.ExStyle |= 0x02000000; // Turn on WS_EX_COMPOSITED
return cp;
}
}
public void RefreshQueueBoard()
{
//Thread.Sleep(000);
while (true)
{
List<QueueData> lstQData = DA.GetAllQueueData(" where service_status_id = 2 ");
printToken(lstQData);
printCounter(lstQData);
playSound(lstQData);
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
}
public void playSound(List<QueueData> lstQData)
{
foreach (QueueData qData in lstQData)
{
if (!qData.SoundPlayed)
{
string strSoundFile;
PlaySoundFIle(#"Sounds/TN.WAV");
foreach (char c in qData.ServiceQueueSerial)
{
strSoundFile = string.Format(#"Sounds/{0}.WAV", c);
PlaySoundFIle(strSoundFile);
}
PlaySoundFIle(#"Sounds/CN.WAV");
foreach (char c in qData.ServiceCounterID)
{
strSoundFile = string.Format(#"Sounds/{0}.WAV", c);
PlaySoundFIle(strSoundFile);
}
string strUpdateQuery = string.Format("UPDATE electro_queue SET sound_played = 1 WHERE service_queue_serial = '{0}'", qData.ServiceQueueSerial);
DA.UpdateQueueData(strUpdateQuery);
}
}
}
public void PlaySoundFIle(string strFile)
{
//string[] files = new string[4] { #"Sounds/TN.WAV", #"Sounds/CN.WAV", #"Sounds/TN.WAV", #"Sounds/CN.WAV"};
//WaveIO wa = new WaveIO();
//wa.Merge(files, #"tempfile.wav");
//MediaPlayer wowSound = new MediaPlayer(); //Initialize a new instance of MediaPlayer of name wowSound
//wowSound.Open(new Uri(#"tempfile.wav", UriKind.Relative)); //Open the file for a media playback
//wowSound.Play();
using (var soundPlayer = new SoundPlayer(strFile))
{
soundPlayer.PlaySync(); // can also use soundPlayer.Play() but it misses some sound file.
}
}
private void printToken(List<QueueData> lstQData)
{
if (InvokeRequired)
{
this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
{
pnlQStat.Controls.Clear();
string dir;
//int xpos = 55;
//int ypos = 207;
int xpos = 10;
int ypos = 00;
//int k=0;
for (int i = 0; i < lstQData.Count; i++)
{
/* if (i == 4 || i == 8)
{
ypos = ypos - 360;
xpos = 675;
}*/
foreach (char c in lstQData[i].ServiceQueueSerial)
{
if (i == 0)
{
dir = "Resources/_" + c + ".bmp";
}
else
{
dir = "Resources/" + c + ".bmp";
}
createPicBox(dir, "pBox" + i, xpos, ypos);
xpos = xpos + 43;
}
ypos = ypos + 50;
xpos = 10;
}
}));
return;
}
}
private void printCounter(List<QueueData> lstQData)
{
if (InvokeRequired)
{
this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
{
//int xpos = 415;
//int ypos = 207;
//int xpos = 292;
int xpos = 220;
int ypos = 00;
//int k=0;
for (int i = 0; i < lstQData.Count; i++)
{
/*if (i == 4 || i == 8)
{
ypos = ypos - 360;
xpos = 1035;
}
*/
foreach (char c in lstQData[i].ServiceCounterID)
{
string dir;
if (i == 0)
{
dir = "Resources/_" + c + ".bmp";
}
else
{
dir = "Resources/" + c + ".bmp";
}
//string dir = "Resources/" + c + ".bmp";
createPicBox(dir, "pBox" + i, xpos, ypos);
xpos = xpos + 63;
}
ypos = ypos + 50;
xpos = xpos - 63;
}
}));
return;
}
}
private void createPicBox(string directory, string name, int xposition, int yposition)
{
PictureBox picBox = new System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox();
picBox.Name = name;
picBox.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(xposition, yposition);
picBox.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(40, 50);
picBox.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(directory);
picBox.BackgroundImageLayout = ImageLayout.Stretch;
pnlQStat.Controls.Add(picBox);
}
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
createPlayList();
//dbListenerThread.Abort(); // this line of code should be placed in onClosing Event.
}
private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
{
dbListenerThread.Abort();
player.playlistCollection.remove(playlist);
}
private void createPlayList()
{
playlist = player.playlistCollection.newPlaylist("mpl");
playlist.appendItem(player.newMedia(#"E:\SONGS\teri-meri-promo-Muskurahat.Com.wmv"));
playlist.appendItem(player.newMedia(#"E:\MOVZZZ\English\The Kid\THE KID FILM_1_0001.avi"));
player.currentPlaylist = playlist;
}
private void btnPlay_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// player.URL = #"E:\MOVZZZ\English\The Kid\THE KID FILM_1_0001.avi";
player.Ctlcontrols.play();
}
private void btnStop_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
player.Ctlcontrols.stop();
}
}
}
My objective is to play the looped sound files sequentially with the video playing in parallel.

Answer 1

You should not use SoundPlayer for this purpose; SoundPlayer is a lightweight, convenience class for playing occasional incidental sounds in an application. It will occasionally skip sounds if other things are going on in the audio subsystem (like a video playing). Here is a good sample that shows how to use the low-level waveOutOpen API for playing sounds.