How to control MediaElement playback with a Storyboard?

Question

In Silverlight/WPF we had the MediaTimeLine, which allowed us to control a MediaElement's playback using a storyboard.  How can we accomplish this in a Metro app?  I want to control playback without using code-behind, strictly using binding.  Is this possible?

Answer 1

This topic was moved by the moderator to the C#/VB forum, but I would like to reiterate that I am looking for a XAML-only approach to playing a sound, e.g. as part of a Storyboard.

Answer 2

Hello Gspence,

You should be able to accomplish this by binding the position property of the timeline to the position property of the MediaElement. I seem to remember on the engineers I worked with in the past doing this successfully in SL. Please give this a try and let me know if you have any specific questions about the implementation and I will try to help you out.

Thanks,

James

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Windows Media SDK Technologies - Microsoft Developer Services - http://blogs.msdn.com/mediasdkstuff/

Answer 3

James,

The MediaTimeLine that we had in Silverlight is not present in Metro, so I don't think there's anything to bind with the MediaElement's Position property.

Thanks,

gspence

Answer 4

You probably would have to create separate component (something like a behaviour) with dependency property that can be manipulated from story board and drive sound playback.

Answer 5

If you can figure out how to get the current position of the timeline you should be able to do something like this to bind to the MediaElement. Keep in mind that the ME current position is defined as a "TimeSpan" so you might need to write a converter.

<MediaElement x:Name="_me" Position="{Binding Value}"/>

I hope this helps,

James

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Windows Media SDK Technologies - Microsoft Developer Services - http://blogs.msdn.com/mediasdkstuff/