Hi,
I'm writing a pair of applications for distributing audio (among other features). I have a WPF program that allows an artist to record and edit audio. Clicking a button then uploads this to a silverlight-powered website. A consumer visiting this website can then listen to the audio. Simple. It works. But I'd like it to be better: I need an audio format that works seamlessly on both the recording and playback sides.
I'm currently using mp3 format, and I'm not happy with it. For the recording/editing, I use the Alvas Audio c# library. It works ok, but for MP3 recording requires that the artist goes into his registry to change msacm.l3acm to l3codecp.acm. That's a lot to ask of an end-user. Furthermore mp3 recording seems rather fragile when I install on a new machine. (Sometimes it randomly just doesn't work until you've fiddled around for a while. I still don't know why.) I've been told that unless I want to pay royalties to the mp3 patent holders, I always need to rely on this type of registry change.
So what other audio format could I use instead? I need something compressed. Alvas audio can also record to GSM, for example, but that won't play back in silverlight. Silverlight will play WMA, but I don't know how to record in that format - Alvas Audio won't. I'd be open to using another recording library instead, but I haven't managed to find one.
Am I missing something obvious, or is there really no user-friendly way to record audio in WPF and play it back in Silverlight? It seems like there should be...
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Thanks.