Background Audio Overview

The following comprise the three main classes used for background audio, which are explored in this chapter:

• BackgroundAudioPlayer

• AudioPlayerAgent

• AudioStreamingAgent

BackgroundAudioPlayer is a class that allows you to specify an audio file for playback and to carry out playback activities such as play, pause, fast-forward, and rewind. BackgroundAudioPlayer allows you to specify track information, such as the title of the track and its location. The built-in playback capabilities of the BackgroundAudioPlayer allow audio files to be streamed from either a remote server or locally from isolated storage.

Out of the box, BackgroundAudioPlayer supports playback formats such as MP3, WMA, and WAV. For a complete list of supported audio formats see http://bit.ly/pnnT8C. BackgroundAudioPlayer offers little in the way of coordinating the playback of a list of audio tracks. This is the task of the AudioPlayerAgent.