KDEs' Multimedia needs

[Stefan Westerfeld]

   Hi!

On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 08:19:03PM +0100, Tim Jansen wrote:
> On Saturday 22 February 2003 19:37, Matthias Welwarsky wrote:
> > A sound server. So far so well, but with what features, what would we want:
> > - simultaneous access
> > - network transparency (?)
> 
> Is desirable, in both directions (for thin clients, when the sound server runs 
> on the X11 side, it must receive sound and for desktop sharing, when the 
> sound server forwards sound to the client). This also adds the requirement 
> that the sound server should be able to encode sound data for low-bandwidth 
> connections, and that it supports a protocol like RTP that can handle packet 
> loss and network congestions graciously.
> 
> This is what I like about MAS.

There is code somewhere in kdenonbeta which adds encoding to aRts. Its just
a matter of some more work to get it moved into the mainstream aRts.

> > - in short, everything you'd want your soundcard to do.
> 
> What's missing in all sound servers so far is device management. They all 
> assume that people only have a single sound device, but that's not true. 
> Today there are USB webcams with built-in microphones, USB headset, VoIP 
> adapters that look like telephones and so on. On Windows managing them is 
> relatively easy, on Linux this is hell (especially if the /dev/dsp* nodes are 
> not stable, because they depend on the order the devices have been plugged 
> in).

There is some form of device management in aRts, implemented in the form of
Arts::AudioManager and the aRts busses. Thus, if aRts has multiple destinations
for sending sound to (such as if you use branchserver from kdenonbeta to
use more than one computer to input/output sound), you can reassign them via
artscontrol. However, I must admit that the concept has although rudimentally
implemented and thus working not attained perfection yet in aRts.

   Cu... Stefan
-- 
  -* Stefan Westerfeld, stefan at space.twc.de (PGP!), Hamburg/Germany
     KDE Developer, project infos at http://space.twc.de/~stefan/kde *-