Phonon java binding

[Aekold Helbrass]

>> because of Sun ignoring the desktop. But there is a problem with
>> non-KDE sound applications, including Amarok 1.4. It is not using
>> Phonon, it is using xine directly. And when it plays - no other KDE4
>> sounds can reach sound system. In other direction - when KDE4 plays
>> something - Amarok 1.4 fails.
> This has actually nothing to do with Phonon at all.
> If more than one application needs to play sound, the system needs to be able
> to mix the streams. This can either happen in the sound hardware, its driver
> or in a sound server.
> Some hardware and/or driver can not provide "multi open", i.e. allowing more
> than one process access to the device. In such cases higher level sound
> mixing is needed, e.g. in the form of the ALSA dmix plugin or in form of a
> sound server like aRts, ESD or PulseAudio.
>
> Media stacks like xine or gstreamer have configuration options for all these
> techniques. If applications using the same or different stacks seem to
> prevent each other from playing sound, either their configuration or that of
> the operating system is broken.
>
>> When you're using KDE4 desktop I can see no difference between
>> multimedia API and sound system, because Phonon blocks sound from
>> other applications.
>
> No, it doesn't.
> If the sound system used by Phonon blocks sound, the configuration of that
> system or even somewhere below in the operating system is broken.

Hm... There was something similar about 5 years ago when KDE 3.2 or
3.3, when only one sound system could reach hardware, and KDE was
silent while xmms was playing, and when xmms stopped - KDE shouted all
the sounds for last few minutes at a time.
And now i thought something similar with Phonon on KDE4. My system is
SUSE 11.1 with no updates for amarok or KDE and KDE4 desktop, and when
amarok 1.4 in autostart - it can't start playing while KDE is playing
startup sound. Same when shutdowning - amarok 1.4 is playing music and
KDE shows some sound error instead of playing shutdown sound... Both
amarok and KDE4 are using xine as engine, xine from packman
repositories.
But if it is not "as designed" but some software bug - should I
investigate it harder and report?