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

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Thursday 19 February 2004 18:42, Arnold Krille wrote:
...
> This one brings me to an idea: What about some different kind of
> implementations:

I think it should be layered.

> - A simple sound-interface apps can use for notifications/simple_playback
> like "Soundserver play this file" and some checking wether it succeded or
> not... 

I think the user-available "play this file" already belongs into the "sound 
system". Otherwise the decoding lib depends on code which has to handle e.g. 
both OSS and ALSA.

> - 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.

IMO the "Sound system" shouldn't deal with lower level issues than the "sound 
server". I.e. IMO it's wrong to put the "play a file" functionality one level 
below the "mix these raw streams" functionality.
I think "play a file" is the most high-level function there is, so it should 
be in the highest level. Mixing raw data is more low level, it deals with 
samples. If the "sound server" supports it, then ok. If the "sound server" 
doesn't support it, then not. 
Perfectly ok for me. I don't need, I can stay with OSS. People who need it can 
use arts as a backend. Are there actually apps want to mix streams they 
didn't produce theirself ?

> 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).

I think everything is there, inside arts. It has to be split apart I guess.

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

Hmm, yet another mailing list to subscribe.... :-/

Bye
Alex
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