Some ideas for the aRts-replacement (was: aRts needs to be replaced (was Re: Disabling aRts in knotify))

[Arnold Krille]

On Thursday 19 February 2004 18:16, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
> This is a variant of the user space vs. kernel space debate. If you want to
> do mp3 decoding/reverb/chorus/128 band equalization in a sound server it
> means the beast has to reimplement some sort of multitasking, and it means
> that one misprogrammed app can bring the server down. This kind of features
> belongs in a media player, not in something which will go "ping" every once
> in a while.

This one brings me to an idea: What about some different kind of 
implementations:

- A simple sound-interface apps can use for notifications/simple_playback like 
"Soundserver play this file" and some checking wether it succeded or not...
- Some kind of "Sound System" which is the layer between apps wanting sounds 
played back or data streamed to whatever sound-server or hardware the user is 
using. This one should check/know wether the sound-server is able to decode 
and if not decode inprogress. Perhaps some kind of mixing can also be done 
for raw-streams.
- A lib for synthesis (libkdesynth?) which is not just synthesizers but also 
effects/mixers/decoders/etc. This lib could be used by every app, that wants 
to. and the "Sound System" can use it for decoding if the soundserver doesn't 
implement it...

Nomenclature:
 Soundserver: The actual implementation that brings the sound to the user. Can 
be direct Alsa/OSS or a soundserver like arts/jack/esd/NMM/NAS/etc...
 Sound System: The central KDE-layer which has one standard interface for apps 
to access the different Soundservers.

Perhaps parts (or everything?) are already implemented and could be used for 
kde, but I think the synth-lib and the soundsystem have to be written 
(including the backend for the various soundservers).
Since two days I am working on some ideas for the soundsystem...

So what do you think about it?

Arnold

PS: perhaps this discussion could be moved to kde-multimedia at kde.org?

-- 
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