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AUDIO_STREAM_CATEGORY enumeration (audiosessiontypes.h)

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Specifies the category of an audio stream.

Syntax

typedef enum _AUDIO_STREAM_CATEGORY {
  AudioCategory_Other,
  AudioCategory_ForegroundOnlyMedia,
  AudioCategory_BackgroundCapableMedia,
  AudioCategory_Communications,
  AudioCategory_Alerts,
  AudioCategory_SoundEffects,
  AudioCategory_GameEffects,
  AudioCategory_GameMedia,
  AudioCategory_GameChat,
  AudioCategory_Speech,
  AudioCategory_Movie,
  AudioCategory_Media,
  AudioCategory_FarFieldSpeech,
  AudioCategory_UniformSpeech,
  AudioCategory_VoiceTyping
} AUDIO_STREAM_CATEGORY;

Constants

 
AudioCategory_Other
Other audio stream.
AudioCategory_ForegroundOnlyMedia
Media that will only stream when the app is in the foreground. This enumeration value has been deprecated. For more information, see the Remarks section.
AudioCategory_BackgroundCapableMedia
Media that can be streamed when the app is in the background. This enumeration value has been deprecated. For more information, see the Remarks section.
AudioCategory_Communications
Real-time communications, such as VOIP or chat.
AudioCategory_Alerts
Alert sounds.
AudioCategory_SoundEffects
Sound effects.
AudioCategory_GameEffects
Game sound effects.
AudioCategory_GameMedia
Background audio for games.
AudioCategory_GameChat
Game chat audio. Similar to AudioCategory_Communications except that AudioCategory_GameChat will not attenuate other streams.
AudioCategory_Speech
Speech.
AudioCategory_Movie
Stream that includes audio with dialog.
AudioCategory_Media
Stream that includes audio without dialog.
AudioCategory_FarFieldSpeech
Media is audio captured with the intent of capturing voice sources located in the ‘far field’. (Far away from the microphone.)
AudioCategory_UniformSpeech
Media is captured audio that requires consistent speech processing for the captured audio stream across all Windows devices. Used by applications that process speech data using machine learning algorithms.
AudioCategory_VoiceTyping
Media is audio captured with the intent of enabling dictation or typing by voice.

Remarks

Note that only a subset of the audio stream categories are valid for certain stream types.

Stream type Valid categories
Render stream All categories are valid.
Capture stream AudioCategory_Communications, AudioCategory_Speech, AudioCategory_Other
Loopback stream AudioCategory_Other
 

Games should categorize their music streams as AudioCategory_GameMedia so that game music mutes automatically if another application plays music in the background. Music or video applications should categorize their streams as AudioCategory_Media or AudioCategory_Movie so they will take priority over AudioCategory_GameMedia streams. Game audio for in-game cinematics or cutscenes, when the audio is premixed or for creative reasons should take priority over background audio, should also be categorized as Media or Movie.

The values AudioCategory_ForegroundOnlyMedia and AudioCategory_BackgroundCapableMedia are deprecated. For Windows Store apps, these values will continue to function the same when running on Windows 10 as they did on Windows 8.1. Attempting to use these values in a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app, will result in compilation errors and an exception at runtime. Using these values in a Windows desktop application built with the Windows 10 SDK the will result in a compilation error.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows 8 [desktop apps | UWP apps]
Minimum supported server Windows Server 2012 [desktop apps | UWP apps]
Header audiosessiontypes.h (include Audioclient.h)

See also

Core Audio Enumerations