Does Visual Basic .NET 2003 offer this?

Hello everybody, I just ordered VB.NET 2003 from Amazon.com yesterday, and I am awaiting it in time for the holiday. Now, my question to you, for everyone that's into digital media programming in VB, you may remember in VB 6.0, there was a multimedia control that used a lot of video and audio formats. Is this Multimedia Control also included with VB.NET 2003 or even the all-new VB 2005? If so, would this multimedia control only use the same formats of media, or would this control be able to handle the newer forms of digital media, like MP3s, WMAs, WMVs, Real Player Video and Audio, PNG Photos, etc..? The reason I ask this, is because I feel that VB6 is getting rather old, and may not support the newer forms of digital media, since I'm looking forward to getting into high-def quality game and digital media programming.

BTW, this was the Standard Version of VB.Net 2003 that I have ordered, not the higher-end versions (the high-end versions would be waaay out of my price range).

managed directx can be used with vb.net with no problems. So it can handle anything that windows media player can play.

Visual Studio 2005 Express for Visual Basic is an improvement on VS 2003 and is available for FREE !

Why would you order and use VB.NET 2003 ?

Those are just the beta versions. The official "stable" version which was just released last week is not free.

Okay, now, another question on my mind, is that, Blitz 3D and VB.NET say that they can work with other languages and stuff like that, however, is it possible that VB.NET code and Blitz 3D code can be combined into one program? I know that Blitz 3D can use inline code from other languages, but I dunno if VB can be used in that code.

Yeah, it is.

Hmm, that's unlike M$ to be able to offer a programming language for free like that, you would think that VB 2005 Express would be at least as much as VB.NET 2003 Standard like I got. I mean, anything like that from M$ would be at least $100 USD. That's how come Mr. Gate$ is so rich.

Actually, Microsoft is giving away quite a lot of stuff. One just have to use the objectivity (tm) glasses to see it. All VS 2005 Express versions are free for one year i.e. you can download them and use them without paying a penny. After the free year is over, one can still use the programs for free, only the new downloads will not be free. Quite a good deal, I'd say...

Barney

Don't get why you ordered VB 2003 standard when you could have got VB Express (Latest Version) for free.

Not as far as I know. That would depend on whether or not that version of VB .NET can compile native and not managed.



Well, apparently you know something I don't, because Blitz3D can't do that.

Bob - cancel your order at least until you taken the free version of 2005 Express for a test drive.

The express versions lack some of what the standard and professional versions have, not sure about VB.net but VC++ express lacks ATL and MFC.

It is possible to call managed DLLs in native code, but the Net. runtimes/framework or whatever is still needed.

Well, not too sure if Amazon would do anything with the higher-end versions of VB 2005 at all, like a Standard Edition (at least Standard would be higher up from Express). I mean, Express may be a little more limited in features than the paid versions of VB 2005. I mean, I know that I don't want to go all the way to Professional or Enterprise for those prices, you could buy a nice AMD 64-based PC for that money. AFAIK, Standard Editions of VB seem to offer more than the low-end freebies, or at least in the tiers of the VB 2005 versions.

BTW, I dunno where you came up with VB 2005 Express being free, because on Amazon's website, they want $40 USD for it.

Well, since VB 2005 was about half the price of VB.NET 2003, I just changed the order to VB 2005 Express from Amazon, so I guess with that $40, that may entitle you with hopefully unlimited downloads, as opposed to the free version that you can only get downloads for a year. That's probably where the cost must come into play. We'll soon see.

VB? Pah! C# rules...

Seriously though remember Microsoft see .NET as a business application development framework. Thats not to say that they have not listened to real world developers who want support for the sexy stuff like Direct X.

The bottom line, to answer your original question is if it can be done in VB6 it can be done in VB7 (or VB.NET whatever you wanna call it)

Express is free for 1 whole year from microsofts very own website.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/default.aspx

Well, better yet, I canceled both orders from Amazon, and went for Visual STUDIO 2005 Standard Edition (it was around $263 USD). I believe that VS 2005 will encompass a lot more than just VB 2005, doesn't VS 2005 also include VC++ 2005 as well? Also, I thought that VS offered at least 5 different languages to program in, or at least that's what MS did with VS when they first came out with that package.

It should include all of the tools, C++, C#, J#, Web, Basic, etc.

C# too? Sweet, can't wait to see what to expect. I believe that the version of VB 2005 included with that should also have more features than that of the Express version alone, is this true? Also, I'm quite sure that some of the code from some languages in the Studio should work hand-in-hand with Blitz 3D, too, if I'm not mistaken.

Wrong there.



Some, yes.

Another good fact, since I have a Dell Axim x30, is that you can also port some of the programs from Visual Studio right into your Pocket PC. I'd like to have some handheld games once in a while, and with this, I may be able to do just that, and have my own game creations.

The features available in the various versions are compared on this Microsoft page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/compare/default.aspx

Express is not a crippled version at all. The main things lacking compared to Standard and Professional are:

- You get one language at a time but they are all spearately available in Express versions
- No mobile device support
- Just a 10Mb sample or optional 200Mb subset of MSDN
- Some limits on third party tool integration. Even so I know of quite a few commercial third party controls and add-ins that are fine and more are being updated all the time.
- No source code control interface
- No 64-bit compiler support
- Limited SQL Server 2005 integration. This refers to the new really tight integration but of course you can still use SQL Server and other databases vary easily

These are pretty much peripheral issues as far as I am concerned. VS2005 Express is astonishingly good and astonishingly free.

The equally good SQL Server 2005 Express is also free and in this case there is no 1 year limit. Microsoft say that it is free and will remain so.

Even if you want to spend money on the Standard, Professional or Team versions I'd recommend downloading Express first to see what it can do.

Just to re-state - VS2005 Express is freely available as a download for 1 year from launch (last month). Even after the year is up, if you already have it you can keep using it and never pay anything to Microsoft. You can write anything you want and sell or give away the executables. The runtime support that is required for .Net programs is also freely available and can be redistributed.

Strategy wise, Microsoft is I think aiming to get people onto the .Net development path leading to more Windows/.Net applications and developers. By providing a free entry point they compete with other free (Java/Eclipse IDE) or low cost alternatives that might erode their developer base in years to come.

I've downloaded VB 2005 yesterday, and tried one program, and I do believe that it was far superior to VB6 Professional, which I got about 5 years ago. Plus VB 2005 seemed to have some support for HD-Quality media, like Dolby-quality MP3s, and widescreen, high-res WMVs, etc... I'm gonna have to test out some of those WMV HD files with some programs, and see how they perform. To me, this may be better than the 2003 .Net versions of VS. Plus I like that VS 2005 Standard has Mobile Device support, since I have a Dell Axim x30 624 MHz Pocket PC that I got about a year ago, so everything looks like it'll all come together.

Hehe, I keep reading that bit and wonder what you're going on about, until realising it's a sig (repeatedly) :P

Yeah, I guess that they didn't have any underlines or smaller, italic font, or anything, man, I wish they'd do better with sigs on this forum...

Stick it in a quote box...

<quote>Blah Blah</quote> (use '[]' instead of '<>')

...that should show it in smaller italics, depending on your bb.com skin ;)