Windows function for mp3 files?

I'm writing a program a lot like an alarm clock. But PlaySound() only plays .wav files which can be freaking massive in size. Nobody wants .wav files these days. I want mp3 capability baby!

I heard something about fmod, some thing I have to download. Is this what I need? Are there other options? Thanks.

As far as I know there is no standard Windows function to play MP3. But there are a lot of MP3 decoders, for example take a look at http://www.thefreecountry.com/ then take the section to audio libraries.

There is not likely to be a function like this since getting licensing rights to decode MP3s costs about $60,000. I suggest you instead use ShellExecute() to open the file that you wish to be played and this will cause whatever MP3s are associated with on your system (Windows Media Player, WinAmp...) to open and play the song.

I have found Windows WILL play MP3s, but it is not documented. What decoder it uses, I don't know, but it seems to work on all installations of Windows I've tried.

You need to use the MCI interface and open an MP3 as 'all device types', like so:

Code:

  MCI_OPEN_PARMS op; // <- data structure
  op.dwCallback = NULL;
  op.lpstrDeviceType = (char*)MCI_ALL_DEVICE_ID; // <- integer value cast as char*
  op.lpstrElementName = fName.c_str(); // <-filename string
  op.lpstrAlias = NULL;

  // Send command to
  mciSendCommand( NULL, MCI_OPEN,  MCI_OPEN_ELEMENT | MCI_WAIT, (DWORD)&op) );

Check out the MS documentation for MCI and mciSendCommand.

Personally, if you want your alarm clock to play a 'ping' or short sound, I would stick with wavs & PlaySound.

Actually I believe MP3, MPEG video and most others go through a common MCI interface. If you specify an MCI device type as "MPEGVideo", modern (Win95B+) systems open up a can of quartz.dll. This in turn links to DirectX Media, so if you have filters for that file format (i.e. It'll play in Media Player), it'll play it.

I doubt that code snippet would work on a pre-Win98 system...