XP and Two Soundcards

justindublin

Hey Guys,

This is starting to stress me out now end so hopefully someone can help.

I have a Windows XP machine that I need to play an online stream but fade when it detects sound playing from another program.

So for example:
Windows Media Player is playing a stream.
Another program begins playing audio.
Windows Media Player Fades to Silent.
Other Program Finishes Playing.
Windows Media Players Fades back in.

The only way I thought of working this was with two soundcards and some talkover software...

Rigged up like this:
Windows Media Players Plays Audio on Soundcard 1
Another program starts playing on Soundcard 2.
Soundcard 2 OUT is connected to MIC IN on Soundcard 1
Talkover Software Detects the Mic feed and fades WMP


Problem with this is that Windows doesn't seem to handle two sound cards very well, as soon as both begin playing, audio becomes distorted on both sound cards and both audio sources slow down literally as if the tempo has been cut in half. Yet Task Manager shows everything is running fine.

Any ideas how I might be able to achieve this system?

I'm not restricted to Windows Media Player either btw, so if there is any developers out there who can help I'm winning to pay.

Thanks in advanced guys,

Cheers,
Paul

JonathanAnon

Jesus Paul, you certainly dont like making life easy for yourself. I have a fair bit of experience of my machine with two sounds cards (onboard and creative SB0240), and most applications will use whichever output you have selected in Control Panel | Sound And Audio Devices ... some applications like Audacity allow you to specify which card to use for that particular application (i.e. not the Windows default) but I'm not sure all WMP or any other apps you are using will give you this option. tbh, with every PC I have two soundcards in, I always end up disabling the onboard cos it gets messy.

Can I ask what are you trying to do.. Is it DJing or similar ? What is the "other program" that should start playing (causing WMP to fade)? If we have a better pic of what you want to do there may be specialised software for it instead of trying to reinvent the wheel yourself.

justindublin

Hey,

Basically the reason is this.

Its for a Factory. Basically an online radio station needs to play constantly (Company Customized Station) but they also have a program which plays out automated messages at varying times through the day, kinda like public announcements.

So what I need to do is play the radio stream, but shut it up once an announcement plays in the other software.

Hellish aint it :cool:

JonathanAnon

hmm, that's sounds like a nice puzzle. wonder if you could use real player to stream the radio, then get a scheduler to execute the loading of an mp3 into realplayer (obviously taking over from the radio stream), then get realplayer to go back to the radio stream. This is the approach I would take as opposed to using two different media players.

Or you could ask the radio station to play your announcements..

JonathanAnon

Just thinking there paul, what is the software that plays their own announcements? Does it have it's own scheduler or how does it know when to kick off?

justindublin

Its Flash, its linked up to 3 or 4 LCDs too. So rotates between static notices and these audio ones. Think its just SWF's...