How to check if an audio file is being played by programs like video players or audio players using C# as console-based app?

Question

I want to check if an audio file is being played by audio or video player programs or by other programs.

Since I don't have any knowledge or somehow solid knowledge about how to do it, I hope, you all(Microsoft Q&A community) will help me to do this kind of thing in C# as a console-based app.(As far as I know, perhaps we should use WASAPI)

Answer 1

Hi @Rahmatulloh , Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

Use the NAudio library to get the volume of the current system audio playback device. If the volume is greater than zero, it can be determined that audio is playing.

Use the Windows API to get all running processes in the system and check the audio output of these processes.

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using NAudio.CoreAudioApi;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var deviceEnumerator = new MMDeviceEnumerator();
        var defaultDevice = deviceEnumerator.GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(DataFlow.Render, Role.Multimedia);

        // Get the audio meter information
        var audioMeterInformation = defaultDevice.AudioMeterInformation;

        // Check if the audio level is greater than 0 (indicating that audio is playing)
        if (audioMeterInformation.MasterPeakValue > 0)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Audio is playing.");
        }
        else
        {
            Console.WriteLine("No audio is playing.");
        }

        // Optionally, you can list all processes and check their names
        var processes = Process.GetProcesses();
        foreach (var process in processes)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Process: {process.ProcessName} (ID: {process.Id})");
        }

        Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit...");
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

Best Regards,

Jiale

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Answer 2

You can use handle.exe to find out what files a process has open.

Handle v5.0 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/handle

For example, to find out what files a media player has open, run the following command with administrator privileges. (grep will become available after installing gnuwin.)

> handle -p Microsoft.Media.Player | grep -E "\.avi|\.mp3|\.mp4|\.mkv"
E0C: File (RWD) C:\Temp\test.avi
E24: File (RWD) C:\Temp\test.avi
E30: File (RWD) C:\Temp\test.avi

However, this only tells you that the file is open, not that it is playing.