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How to: Play Media using a VideoDrawing

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To play an audio or video file, you use a VideoDrawing and a MediaPlayer. There are two ways to load and play media. The first is to use a MediaPlayer and a VideoDrawing by themselves, and the second way is to create your own MediaTimeline to use with the MediaPlayer and VideoDrawing.

Note

When distributing media with your application, you cannot use a media file as a project resource, like you would an image. In your project file, you must instead set the media type to Content and set CopyToOutputDirectory to PreserveNewest or Always.

Use a VideoDrawing and a MediaPlayer

The following example uses a VideoDrawing and a MediaPlayer to play a video file once.

//
// Create a VideoDrawing.
//
MediaPlayer player = new MediaPlayer();

player.Open(new Uri(@"sampleMedia\xbox.wmv", UriKind.Relative));

VideoDrawing aVideoDrawing = new VideoDrawing();

aVideoDrawing.Rect = new Rect(0, 0, 100, 100);

aVideoDrawing.Player = player;

// Play the video once.
player.Play();

To gain additional timing control over the media, use a MediaTimeline with the MediaPlayer and VideoDrawing objects. The MediaTimeline enables you to specify whether the video should repeat.

Use a MediaTimeline

The following example uses a MediaTimeline with the MediaPlayer and VideoDrawing objects to play a video repeatedly.

//
// Create a VideoDrawing that repeats.
//

// Create a MediaTimeline.
MediaTimeline mTimeline =
    new MediaTimeline(new Uri(@"sampleMedia\xbox.wmv", UriKind.Relative));

// Set the timeline to repeat.
mTimeline.RepeatBehavior = RepeatBehavior.Forever;

// Create a clock from the MediaTimeline.
MediaClock mClock = mTimeline.CreateClock();

MediaPlayer repeatingVideoDrawingPlayer = new MediaPlayer();
repeatingVideoDrawingPlayer.Clock = mClock;

VideoDrawing repeatingVideoDrawing = new VideoDrawing();
repeatingVideoDrawing.Rect = new Rect(150, 0, 100, 100);
repeatingVideoDrawing.Player = repeatingVideoDrawingPlayer;

Note that, when you use a MediaTimeline, you use the interactive ClockController returned from the Controller property of the MediaClock to control media playback instead of the interactive methods of MediaPlayer.

See also