Streaming with go-between in Windows 8

Question

I want to stream data from a server into a MediaElement in my Windows 8 Store (formerly Metro) app. However, I need to "record" the stream while it is streaming, so it can be served from cache if re-requested, so I don't want to feed the URL directly into the MediaElement.

Currently, the stumbling block is that MediaElement.SetSource() accepts an IRandomAccessStream, not a System.IO.Stream, which is what I get from HttpWebResponse.GetResponseStream().

The code I have now, which does not work:

var request = WebRequest.CreateHttp(url);
request.AllowReadStreamBuffering = false;
request.BeginGetResponse(ar =>
                {
                    var response = ((HttpWebResponse)request.EndGetResponse(ar));
                    // this is System.IO.Stream:
                    var stream = response.GetResponseStream(); 
                    // this needs IRandomAccessStream:
                    MediaPlayer.SetSource(stream, "audio/mp3");
                }, null);

Is there a solution that allows me to stream audio, but allows me to copy the stream to disk when it has finished reading from the remote side?

have you figured it out? actually i do not need to store it, i just want to stream it directly. — esskar, Oct 19 '12 at 00:52
@esskar Not really. Streaming directly works great by just providing the URL, or a `InMemoryRandomAccessStream`. The problem is distributing the stream to two different locations. — Vegard Larsen, Oct 19 '12 at 07:39
thanks for the information. i tried to set the `.Source` property directly, but it does not work out for me. (I get a null-ref exceptions somewhere in the deep), and i have not figured out how to create a `IRandomAccessStream` form an URL. but i will work on it today. — esskar, Oct 19 '12 at 07:44
You don't need an `IRandomAccessStream`, simply set `me.Source = new Uri("http://...");` and it should work... — Vegard Larsen, Oct 19 '12 at 10:56

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 08 '12 at 15:52

I haven't experimented with the following idea, but it might work: You could start streaming the web data into a file and then, after a few seconds (for buffering), pass that file to the MediaElement.

I noticed that MediaElement can be picky about opening a file that is being written into, but I have seen it work. Though, I can't say why it sometimes work and why it sometimes doesn't.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 20 '15 at 04:02

I guess this would help you to convert Stream to IRandomAccessStream

InMemoryRandomAccessStream  ras = new InMemoryRandomAccessStream();

using (Stream stream = response.GetResponseStream();)
  {
    await stream.CopyToAsync(ras.AsStreamForWrite());
  }

Streaming with go-between in Windows 8

2 Answers2