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Capture still images with UWP MediaCapture (PIN_CATEGORY_STILL)

An alternative title could be: What happened to PIN_CATEGORY_STILL?
I am currently comparing images that were captured using DirectShow and PIN_CATEGORY_STILL with images that were captured using UWP MediaCapture.
On the device I am testing/playing around with DirectShow and MediaCapture, DirectShow detects a PIN_CATEGORY_STILL but I am not able to initialize an instance of MediaCapture with anything other than PhotoCaptureSource.VideoPreview.
MediaCaptureInitializationSettings settings = new()
{
VideoDeviceId = someDeviceId,
PhotoCaptureSource = PhotoCaptureSource.Photo
};
MediaCapture capture = new();
// this throws an exception
// "The capture source does not have an independent photo stream."
await capture.InitializeAsync(settings);
At this point I'm not even sure if PhotoCaptureSource.Photo is meant to be used as an equivalent to PIN_CATEGORY_STILL.
Images captured with PIN_CATEGORY_STILL are way brighter in a dark environment and have a much better quality (in file size and resolution) (which is clear to me, since I am using PhotoCaptureSource.VideoPreview for MediaCapture).
Considering this resource Win32 and COM for UWP apps, it seems like UWP MediaCapture does not use DirectShow underneath but MediaFoundation (which is meant to be a successor for DirectShow).
This article led me to this StackOverflow question Media Foundation is incorrectly marking still image capture stream descriptors as video capture, which basically states that MediaFoundation has no PIN_CATEGORY_STILL but returns 1 FPS as video capability for such devices (or profiles).
Since I am not directly using MediaFoundation nor C++, I tried testing this by querying GetAvailableMediaStreamProperties:
private void Foo()
{
var videoPreviewProperties = GetEncodingProperties(MediaStreamType.VideoRecord);
var photoProperties = GetEncodingProperties(MediaStreamType.Photo);
var videoRecordProperties = GetEncodingProperties(MediaStreamType.VideoPreview);
}
private List<VideoEncodingProperties> GetEncodingProperties(MediaStreamType streamType)
{
// MediaCapture was previously initialized with PhotoCaptureSource.VideoPreview
return MediaCapture.VideoDeviceController
.GetAvailableMediaStreamProperties(streamType)
.OfType<VideoEncodingProperties>()
.ToList();
}
None of these returns a VideoEncodingProperties with only 1 FPS.
To test MediaCapture any further I tried some of the sample applications from here UWP sample. I tried CameraAdvancedCapture, CameraOpenCV and CameraManualControls, but the results were not nearly as good as good old PIN_CATEGORY_STILL.
What happened to PIN_CATEGORY_STILL?
Is there any way to capture images without DirectShow/PIN_CATEGORY_STILL and still keeping this level of quality?
Any enlightenment is much appricated.

Playing (not recording/exporting) multiple MIDI tracks

I would like to have multiple MIDI instruments playing at once with NAudio. I've found instructions for how to play a single MIDI instrument, and I've found instructions for how to export multiple tracks in a single MidiEventCollection to a file. However, I can't seem to put these ideas together.
Here is some dumb example code I have that cycles through all my MIDI instruments, playing a major 3rd harmony for each one:
var midiOut = new MidiOut(0);
for (var i = 0; i <= 127; i++)
{
midiOut.Send(MidiMessage.ChangePatch(i, 1).RawData);
midiOut.Send(MidiMessage.StartNote(60, 127, 1).RawData);
midiOut.Send(MidiMessage.StartNote(64, 127, 1).RawData);
Thread.Sleep(500);
}
This works fine of course, but if I wanted that C andE to be played by different instruments, I'd be out of luck. I only have the one MIDI device and I can only have one connection to that open at a time, and MidiOut does not appear to support adding multiple tracks.
On the other hand, the MidiEventController code looks like it would be more or less what I want, but I only see examples of exporting that to a file, rather than actually playing the events. I put together something like this:
var events = new MidiEventCollection(1, 120);
var track = events.AddTrack();
var setInstrument = new PatchChangeEvent(0, 1, 66);
var play = new NoteOnEvent(0, 1, 60, 127, 1000);
track.Add(setInstrument);
track.Add(play);
But at this point I cannot figure out how to actually play the track, rather than export it.

If you want to play two different patches at the same time, this is what MIDI channels are for.
At your disposal are 16 channels, of which channel 10 is reserved for percussion if you're using a GM scheme.
In your first code snippet, you appear to be using only MIDI channel 1.
How about using more than one channel and loading different patches for each channel?

Canon SDK - how to check if video is recording?

This question refers to using the Canon SDK with a video capable DSLR camera. Anyone know if there is way to check if a video is being recorded on the camera ?
I know there is no way to start recording video with the SDK, but maybe there is way to check if one is being recorded right now ?
Thanks.

as the latest canon sdk contais folowing pahagraph:
6.4.3 Begin/End movie shooting
You can begin/end movie shooting with the following operations.
EdsUInt32 record_start = 4; // Begin movie shooting
err = EdsSetPropertyData(cameraRef, kEdsPropID_Record, 0, sizeof(record_start), &record_start);
EdsUInt32 record_stop = 0; // End movie shooting
err = EdsSetPropertyData(cameraRef, kEdsPropID_Record, 0, sizeof(record_stop), &record_stop);
you may check the property data and if it is set to 4 - than the video is recording.

Access TV Tuner Stream/Feed in WPF

My team built a WPF (C#) Application that integrates with Media Center to show a video in the center of a dashboard. Essentially, the application begins recording a TV channel via Media Center, waits 10 seconds and begins playing back the file as it is being recorded. In the year since the application has launched, we have had roughly 50 help desk tickets created, 45 of which are specifically for the Media Center integration and setup.
We have determined that we need to make a major change in the implementation and architecture to remove the Media Center application all together and try to show the feed from the TV tuner directly, like you would a web cam. Unfortunately, nobody on the team here has done this before nor can we find any resources or samples of this being done.
I'm looking for working code samples that can take the stream from the TV tuner and show it in Windows Form or WPF application. I'd even be willing to buy 3rd party components out there or software. Heck, I'd even be willing to pay someone that knows how to do this to do just that!
Can you please point me in the right direction?
CODE FOR VIDEO
<MediaKit:MediaUriElement x:Name="MediaContainer" Volume="1"
Stretch="Uniform" HorizontalAlignment="Center"
UnloadedBehavior="Manual" LoadedBehavior="Play"
Height="820.00020739959" Width="1393.843"/>
CODE FOR RECORDING VIDEO
DeletePreviousRecordings();
MediaCenterControl mcc = new MediaCenterControl();
mcc.StopAllRecordings();
DateTime recordingStartTime;
DateTime endTime = DateTime.Now.Subtract(TimeSpan.FromDays(1));
int loopCount = 0;
do
{
if (loopCount++ >= 5)
{
// TODO: Show error
break;
}
recordingStartTime = DateTime.Now;
RecordingEndTime = recordingStartTime.AddMinutes(RecordDuration);
} //loop count was added below so it knew not to throw until five shots have been missed # scheduling.
while ((endTime = mcc.RecordMedia(recordingStartTime, Settings1.Default.RecordChannel, RecordDuration, loopCount)) < DateTime.Now);
if (endTime > DateTime.Now)
RecordingEndTime = endTime;
}

This can definitely be done but you would have to narrow down to one tv tuner. I actually have this working using the WinTV-HVR-1950. It took me a while but you have to get down and dirty with the hauppage drivers to get the signal and send it to the application. I'll have to look up that code but I think I may have your solution.

How to mute the microphone c#

I wanted to know, what would the coding be if I wanted to toggle mute/unmute of my microphone. I am making a program that can run in the background and pickup a keypress event and toggle mute/unmute of the mic. Any help with any of that coding would be very helpful. I am pretty new to C#, and this is just a really simple program I wanted to make. That is all it does, is it will listen for keypress of the spacebar, even when the program is in the background, then when the spacebar is pressed it will mute/unmute the mic.
Thank you for any and all help!

For Windows Vista and newer, you can no longer use the Media Control Interface, Microsoft has a new Core Audio API that you must access to interface with audio hardware in these newer operating systems.
Ray Molenkamp wrote a nice managed wrapper for interfacing with the Core Audio API here:
Vista Core Audio API Master Volume Control
Since I needed to be able to mute the microphone from XP, Vista and Windows 7 I wrote a little Windows Microphone Mute Library which uses Ray's library on the newer operating systems and parts of Gustavo Franco's MixerNative library for Windows XP and older.

You can download the source of a whole application which has muting the microphone, selecting it as a recording device, etc.
http://www.codeguru.com/csharp/csharp/cs_graphics/sound/article.php/c10931/

you can use MCI (Media Control Interface) to access mics and change their volume system wise. Check the code below it should be setting volume to 0 for all system microphones. Code is in c; check pinvoke for details on how to translate this code to c#
#include "mmsystem.h"
...
void MuteAllMics()
{
HMIXER hmx;
mixerOpen(&hmx, 0, 0, 0, 0);
// Get the line info for the wave in destination line
MIXERLINE mxl;
mxl.cbStruct = sizeof(mxl);
mxl.dwComponentType = MIXERLINE_COMPONENTTYPE_DST_WAVEIN;
mixerGetLineInfo((HMIXEROBJ)hmx, &mxl, MIXER_GETLINEINFOF_COMPONENTTYPE);
// find the microphone source line connected to this wave in destination
DWORD cConnections = mxl.cConnections;
for (DWORD j=0; j<cConnections; j++)
{
mxl.dwSource = j;
mixerGetLineInfo((HMIXEROBJ)hmx, &mxl, MIXER_GETLINEINFOF_SOURCE);
if (MIXERLINE_COMPONENTTYPE_SRC_MICROPHONE == mxl.dwComponentType)
{
// Find a volume control, if any, of the microphone line
LPMIXERCONTROL pmxctrl = (LPMIXERCONTROL)malloc(sizeof MIXERCONTROL);
MIXERLINECONTROLS mxlctrl =
{
sizeof mxlctrl,
mxl.dwLineID,
MIXERCONTROL_CONTROLTYPE_VOLUME,
1,
sizeof MIXERCONTROL,
pmxctrl
};
if (!mixerGetLineControls((HMIXEROBJ) hmx, &mxlctrl, MIXER_GETLINECONTROLSF_ONEBYTYPE))
{
DWORD cChannels = mxl.cChannels;
if (MIXERCONTROL_CONTROLF_UNIFORM & pmxctrl->fdwControl)
cChannels = 1;
LPMIXERCONTROLDETAILS_UNSIGNED pUnsigned = (LPMIXERCONTROLDETAILS_UNSIGNED)
malloc(cChannels * sizeof MIXERCONTROLDETAILS_UNSIGNED);
MIXERCONTROLDETAILS mxcd =
{
sizeof(mxcd),
pmxctrl->dwControlID,
cChannels,
(HWND)0,
sizeof MIXERCONTROLDETAILS_UNSIGNED,
(LPVOID) pUnsigned
};
mixerGetControlDetails((HMIXEROBJ)hmx, &mxcd, MIXER_SETCONTROLDETAILSF_VALUE);
// Set the volume to the middle (for both channels as needed)
//pUnsigned[0].dwValue = pUnsigned[cChannels - 1].dwValue = (pmxctrl->Bounds.dwMinimum+pmxctrl->Bounds.dwMaximum)/2;
// Mute
pUnsigned[0].dwValue = pUnsigned[cChannels - 1].dwValue = 0;
mixerSetControlDetails((HMIXEROBJ)hmx, &mxcd, MIXER_SETCONTROLDETAILSF_VALUE);
free(pmxctrl);
free(pUnsigned);
}
else
{
free(pmxctrl);
}
}
}
mixerClose(hmx);
}
here you can find more code on this topic
hope this helps, regards

I have several microphones in win7 and class WindowsMicrophoneMuteLibrary.CoreAudioMicMute is incorrect in this case.
so I change the code and works great because now his cup Whistle all microphones and not just in the last recognized by win7.
I am attaching the new class to put in place.
http://www.developpez.net/forums/d1145354/dotnet/langages/csharp/couper-micro-sous-win7/