I'm working on a WinRT project in which I'm playing multiple video files at the same time. I have 3 audio devices attached to machine which will be used distinctively to render audio from video file(s) that's playing. Maximum number of videos that can be played simultaneously is 3. Hence each audio device would be used to render audio from its corresponding video file. i.e. Audio device 1 would play video 1 and so on. That's the requirement I have.
So far, I came across two approaches. First, we use Dolby or any other API to channelize audio to corresponding device. i.e. left channel is rendered to device 1, middle/center to device 2, and right to device 3. I've tried Dolby Audio sample app for Windows 10. They've done channeling in embedded video, not in code. I couldn't find documentation for Windows 10 Dolby API. So for this approach, can I render audio in form of a channel to a particular audio device? And I don't want to merge audio in anyway.
Second, we use 3 sound cards and attach an audio device to each one. We choose the device we want to play audio on by providing device ID. I've tried this approach with XAudio2 by calling createMasteringVoice() method with device ID I want. That worked for single audio file, however, I want to render audio of multiple videos that are being played.
Both approaches didn't solve the core requirement yet. So considering the scenario, what is best approach to follow to fulfill the requirement?
I would say you can go with XAudio2 as you mentioned in second approach. Since you can pass deviceId to createMasteringVoice(), you can create multiple instance of UniversalAudioPlayer and pass different IDs to each one. This way multiple sounds can be played concurrently. Take a look at function definition and community additions here.