Windows 7 Taskforce

.Chris wrote on January 21, 2009, 7:10pm

I agree!. I dont get why microsoft removes these usefull features.... shame on them

Dubya wrote on January 21, 2009, 7:23pm

Yes I noticed the same thing. Very annoying to have to manually swop between playback devices. Not sure how they will get over that hurdle of having multiple output devices - Windows having to choose which one to use...at least should make it easier to select another device?

xombie wrote on January 22, 2009, 7:56am

I never noticed that in XP either.

But would be a good feature nonetheless.

johnren wrote on January 27, 2009, 10:17pm

I've posted this to other places in hopes that Larry Osterman and those on the Windows Media Player team will see it. This pertains to this windows7taskforce issue: 1068.

In Windows XP, we were able to use the Windows Media Player 9-11 SDK to play sound to whatever soundcard device was set as the default playback device when the application was loaded. This was done using the SoundMapper registry key, see http://andocs.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/choosing...playback-device-in-xp/ for an example.

In Vista, we switched the default audio device using "macros" to bring up the audio control panel and set the default audio device. In this case, the audio was forced to the default audio device that was set when the audio started playing in the WMP SDK instance rather than when the application was loaded. This allowed multiple instances to output to multiple audio sources at the same time.

Larry, you are right in saying that it was not officially supported by Windows XP. The issue for us is that in this age of digitial media and connected homes/businesses, with what we were given in XP (semi-programmatic) and Vista (macros), workarounds were created to provide this functionality for applications and customers that needed it, in our case, 10,000+ customers.

If Windows 7 continues with adding support for "Stream Switching" without giving the ability for a program to opt out, a general case, or in our specific situation, have the WMP SDK allow us to set the output audio device for the WMP SDK instance (this is if your statement that Stream Switching won't switch audio for applications that have specified a specific output device) then there will be a bunch of unhappy customers. This also applies to other audio SDKs and applications that do not support specifying an output device and instead always use the default audio device.

The original windows7taskforce submission states this feature was removed in Vista, which is technically inaccurate. Vista just needed a different method for setting the default audio device than XP did. But in the case of Windows 7, this non-intentional, though necessary feature has finally been killed/removed.

Our Connect Feedback for this issue is located at: https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeed...=399755&SiteID=647

I hope my postings to different places aren't bothersome. I'm just trying to make sure the people that need to see this information see it before it is too late and our company and other companies have a lot of unhappy customers.

Thank you,

John

jinskip wrote on January 31, 2009, 5:02pm

I cannot understand why Microsoft has taken away the ability to output analog & digital audio simultaneously in Vista. Why have that done that? This worked so well in WinXP. I'm also sick to death of having to close down whatever application I am using every time I wish to switch to a different sound playback device (ie headphones, digital out to TV, analog out to speakers, digital out to amp). I have been waiting since the launch of Vista for a resolution to this to no avail. Microsoft have told me that they are working on the issue, but how long do we have to wait? I've got so fed up of it all, I've diched Vista and gone back to XP. Shame on Microsoft that old software can do things better than their latest OS.

cayspekko wrote on February 16, 2009, 10:25pm

I just want to put my two cents in about this topic. I have a 5.1 digital audio surround sound system connected trough spdif connector on my computer. My mom is VERY hard of hearing and so she has wireless headphones that she uses to listen to analog sound. In XP we enjoyed listening to the 5.1 surround and my mom enjoyed listening to the analog headphones simultaneous. This is very easy to do in XP. However, it's IMPOSIBLE to do it in Vista. Using a dirty hack, we were able to get it to output ANALOG 2.1 sound to both the digital audio surround and the headphones simultaneously, however, this patch doesn't work in the windows 7 beta For the sake of my poor hard-of-hearing mother, put simultaneous output of digital and analog audio into Windows 7!!!

spplutchok wrote on March 19, 2009, 9:27am

Please add this back into Win7. I wear hearing aids that are Bluetooth enabled. I purchased an AZIO Bluetooth USB device that will broadcast stereo sound directly to my hearing aids. The problem is that Vista and Win7 only allow audio output to one device/stream. I have a ATI video card where I use the HDMI video/audio output to my Sony Bravia. The ATI card supports 7.1 sound and is great. I NEED to have my AZIO working concurrently so I can appreciate the great Blue-ray audio as well.

Concurrent audio is a NEEDED feature. Please get it in WIN7!!!

mrceolla wrote on January 15, 2010, 3:51am

Add my vote to the list. There are many reasons some users desire simultaneous digital and analog output. The reasons described above are excellent reasons in themselves. My particular reason is due to my receiver's limitations with sending audio to other "zones". For those that don't know, zones in a receiver are so you can send different audio sources to different zones. Usually people use zones for different areas of the house but there are other uses. Anyway, my reciever can only decode digital audio for zone 1 and I can only send analog sources to zones 2 and 3.

As stated above, this use to work in XP with my setup. Yes I did have third party stuff installed in order to get digital 5.1 passthrough to work, but I BELIEVE my external Sound Blaster Live 24-bit sound card always sent at least stereo audio out both digital and analog outputs. This appears to have been done away.

Through experimenting, I have gotten it to work but only temporarily. I am using AC3Filter and have also performed some reg hacks and file renaming to get digital 5.1 passthrough to work. So this may play a part. But I first encountered this behavior after setting WMP to use my analog outputs while my defaul was still my digital output. Now as I sit here playing music through Media Center, it comes out of my analog output and sometimes through my digital output. My digital output eventually stops. It seems to stop after about 15 seconds. Simply mousing over a button or temporarily muting the audio can bring the digital output back. All the while the analog ouput is always working. It makes no sense.

Now I haven't rebooted since this started happening and I'm not going to be able to explain everything I've done since I installed the OS. But the point is the hardware can do it in Windows 7. I don't know if it's the OS or the drivers from the manufacturers, but many of us greatly desire simultaneous digital and analog output from Windows 7.

Please fix this soon!

triovela wrote on January 18, 2010, 8:40pm

Fix needed.

CraiginNJ wrote on February 3, 2010, 3:06pm

This thread seems redundant of the earlier thread
http://www.windows7taskforce.com/view/76
Should they be merged?

Also: If Larry Osterman's team (or even the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) were willing to donate the recurring annual cost of a kernal driver digital signature to the author of Virtual Audio Cable, we'd all have a 3rd party workaround we could use until Windows 8 adds simultaneous multiple audio output (if it ever does).