Mci : The Use Of - GameCreators Forum

Author

Message

Gael

15

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 27th Sep 2010

Location: Athens .

Posted: 19th Oct 2010 17:31

Link

Hello

I've been messing around with mci lately,using the "call dll" commang after loading "winmm.dll"
Heres my predicament
There are several ways to call an Mci function

+ Code Snippet

 a.mciExecute
 b.mciSendStringA
 c.mciSendStringW
 d.mciSendCommandW
 e.mciSendCommandA

The issue (mine):
ive typed this code to record sound and save it

+ Code Snippet

print "MCI TEST Vita"
load dll "winmm.dll",1
call dll 1,"WinmmLogon"
rem this command opens a new wave for recording
call dll 1,"mciExecute","Open new type waveAudio alias RWF"
print "::Loaded"
REM CODE PLACE HOLDER HERE 
call dll 1,"mciExecute","Record RWF"
do
cls
print "recording press space to exit"
if spacekey()=1
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Stop RWF"
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Save RWF c:\sab.wav"
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Close RWF"
 exit
endif
loop

the above will record anything you hear(if thats your device setting) , and save it on a wave file , once you hit space.

that does not differ from the DB command record sound.

When it comes to altering the sound quality though
the program either crashes -when mciSendStringW is used
or the output file cant be played after its saved-when mciExecute is used

Here is the setting_sound_quality_so_excited calls.

+ Code Snippet

call dll 1,"mciSendStringW","Set RWF Time Format milliseconds Format Tag pcm any input any output bitspersample 16 bytespersec 176400 samplespersec 44100 channels 2 alignment 2"

call dll 1,"mciExecute","Set RWF Time Format milliseconds Format Tag pcm any input any output bitspersample 16 bytespersec 176400 samplespersec 44100 channels 2 alignment 2"

A have a suspicion that im not saving the parameters correctly , so the my_fault might be , that i need to pass integers and not string to the mci
If you have an idea on what im missing , id like to hear
Thanks

(second coffee)

Back to top

Profile PM Email

Gael

15

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 27th Sep 2010

Location: Athens .

Posted: 19th Oct 2010 20:08

Link

Okay fixed it.
Apparently
A.i had to follow this order in setting the quality
(1) Format tag
(2) Bits Per Sample
(3) Channels
(4) Alignment
(5) SampleRate
(6) BytesPerSecond
B.to set the quality , save , open , and record using the same command.-if opened with <mciExecute> do everything with this command etc...

C.in order to utilize the MCI send string command (for any use)
,the syntax you should follow is this.

+ Code Snippet

   d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","command string with parameters (all strings ,no DB integers","",0,0)

i managed to record at high quality using this quatro of commands

+ Code Snippet

 REM THE LOAD OFFCOURSE
load dll "D:\WINDOWS\system32\winmm.dll",1
 REM NOT SURE IF ITS NEEDED
call dll 1,"WinmmLogon"
 REM THIS SETS UP A WAVE CALL-NAMED "RWF" as wave and new
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Open new type waveAudio alias RWF"
 REM HERES THE REQUIRED SETUP -or not if recording at low
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Set RWF Format Tag pcm bitspersample 16 channels 2 alignment 4 samplespersec 44100 bytespersec 176400"
 REM INITIATE RECORDING WITH THIS-use the call name when you opened the wave
call dll 1,"mciExecute","Record RWF"
 REM STOP RECORDING
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Stop RWF"
 REM SAVE RECORDING
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Save RWF c:\sab.wav"
 REM CLOSE RECORDING
 call dll 1,"mciExecute","Close RWF"

the above its displayed as a command referense .
The actual result of this code would be ... exiting

enjoy .

^3

Back to top

Profile PM Email

Gael

15

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 27th Sep 2010

Location: Athens .

Posted: 19th Oct 2010 20:10

Link

Heres some .wav documentation as well

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/422/projects/WaveFormat/

Back to top

Profile PM Email

Latch

19

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 23rd Jul 2006

Location:

Posted: 19th Oct 2010 23:04

Link

Hello Gael,

Is there any way to grab the byte data as it's being recorded and save it to a memory buffer so that something like a frequency vu meter could be made in real time?

Do your demos record from any source? Say, a cd is playing or maybe a sound file in DB. The goal would be to capture this audio, send it to a buffer and use the bytes to create the meter in real time.

Enjoy your day.

Back to top

Profile PM

Gael

15

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 27th Sep 2010

Location: Athens .

Posted: 22nd Oct 2010 16:43

Link

Latch Hello .

Im working on arming MCI on dark basic completely.
There are several issues though.
For instance.At this moment im coding around , simply returning the position of the record.The command freezes DarkBasic compiler , which (from past MCI headaches ) translates to "Passing Variables or requesting them , the wrong way , or the wrong type"
errors 261,264,292 occur.meaning , out of memory(?) cant recognize command , cant recognize deviceID.
Heres how i attempt to get a value returned from MCI

+ Code Snippet

 ATT1 :
 rem using the mci copy command ,which passes strings to the clipboard .By not specifying which part of the buffered recorded at_the_moment sound to copy , it copies from the current to the last(which is the current) so im assuming , the current is copied
 dak=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","copy RWF","",0,0)
REM the other way is to call MCI_STATUS 
 dak=call dll(1,"mciExecute","MCI_STATUS_POSITION RWF")
REM NOTE RWF is the name we gave our device

Back to top

Profile PM Email

Gael

15

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 27th Sep 2010

Location: Athens .

Posted: 22nd Oct 2010 19:10

Link

The following gets return values from mci
Create a C:\test.wav .
@ latch : your required data extraction includes changing "position" to "level".
Latest issue "level" doesnt respond . !So far

+ Code Snippet

set display mode 800,600,32
dak as dword
dk$ as string
Ptr as DWORD
Ctr as DWORD
bi as byte
Ptr=Make Memory(256)
remstart
*Ptr=42
PRINT *Ptr
remend

load dll "winmm.dll",1

rem load file to sount memory
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","open waveAudio!c:\test.wav alias sounter","",0,0)
print "open ->";d
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","play sounter","",0,0)
print "play ->";d
wait 500
do
cls
print "Playing"
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","status sounter position",Ptr,255)
vio=*Ptr
Ctr=Ptr
resul$=""
for a=1 to 255
 bi=*Ctr
 if bi<>0
 print bi
 endif
 resul$=resul$+chr$(bi)
 Ctr=Ctr+1
 next a
print resul$

if spacekey()=1
 exit
endif
loop
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","close sounter","",0,0)
print "Stopped"
wait key

Back to top

Profile PM Email

Latch

19

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 23rd Jul 2006

Location:

Posted: 22nd Oct 2010 19:52 Edited at: 22nd Oct 2010 19:55

Link

@Gael

Thanks for your work on this.

I did a little bit of MCI work a while ago. Maybe this link contains some helpful information: Audio Dll

Has the copy command been successful for you with audio? If it has, that sounds like it might be a way to get that information. And if the copy range can be limited to TO and FROM positions, then the sampled section size can be controlled - maybe making it easier to do the frequency analysis.

There's a buffer that's manually or automatically created when Open is called. I think chunks of data are stored here before being sent to disk. I wonder if there is some way to access this. I haven't been able to find any info on this.

Enjoy your day.

Back to top

Profile PM

Gael

15

Years of Service

User Offline

Joined: 27th Sep 2010

Location: Athens .

Posted: 22nd Oct 2010 20:10 Edited at: 22nd Oct 2010 20:13

Link

@Latch , found it

.The remaining issue(-god-bless-you-microsofts-easy-to-understand-not-documentation-if-it-exists) is that
a.need to set the input on the file.
0 for the currently selected playback device
1 for the second sound device
2 and last the microsoft mapper
b.when you set the input , you hear nothing , but you can see the
signal
c.if you dont set the input you can hear the sound but mci returns error 322 which translatest to "device in use"

+ Code Snippet

  set display mode 800,600,32
dak as dword
dk$ as string
Ptr as DWORD
Ctr as DWORD
bi as byte
Ptr=Make Memory(256)
remstart
*Ptr=42
PRINT *Ptr
remend

load dll "winmm.dll",1

rem load file to sount memory
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","open waveAudio!c:\test.wav alias sounter","",0,0)
print "open ->";d
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","play sounter","",0,0)
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","set sounter input 0","",0,0)
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","set sounter output 0","",0,0)

ic=0

print "play ->";d
wait 500
do

cls

print "Playing"
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","status sounter level",Ptr,255)
print "errors ";d
vio=*Ptr
Ctr=Ptr
resul$=""
for a=1 to 255
 bi=*Ctr
 if bi<>0
 print bi
 endif
 resul$=resul$+chr$(bi)
 Ctr=Ctr+1
 next a
print resul$

if spacekey()=1
 exit
endif
loop
d=call dll(1,"mciSendStringA","close sounter","",0,0)
print "Stopped"
wait key

forgot this

couldnt find any info either.
many people have been tortured by mci "complexity"
Another issue . I think mci was up to winXP .They've replaced it
if im not misinformed.

Back to top

Profile PM Email

Sorry your browser is not supported!

DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Mci : The Use Of