Re: [xougen] Adding cruft to X

[Arwed von Merkatz]

On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 12:58:48PM -0700, Tupshin Harper wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> >On Sul, 2003-09-07 at 19:52, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>Well, we were talking on chat, and I suggested a system parallel to X, 
> >>which I referred to as A, or the "A Audio System", which would run 
> >>alongside X, and provide a much-needed portable sound library (it would 
> >>be detected with an environment variable "SOUND", paralleling X's 
> >>"DISPLAY").  But I would have it a separate module, personally...
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >NAS, Esound, arts..
> >
> >We have three already thank you
> > 
> >
> Agreed, that remote audio already exists, and works fine. 
> However...there are disadvantages to using a system that doesn't ride 
> within the X protocol. These include:
> 1) Prolifiration of APIs
> 2) Complexity of configuration (particularly firewalls, etc.)
> 3) Most importantly, strong synchronization. Unless the audio and 
> display information travel through the same stream, and go through the 
> same event handling API, there is no way to guarantee tight 
> coupling(e.g. <20 milliseconds) between audio and display events.
 
3) MAS (www.mediaapplicationserver.net) does this. There's no need to
reinvent the wheel, MAS integrates with X already. I don't think it
needs to be part of X, synchronization issues for audio/video
aren't really the domain of X.
Another nice feature of MAS is that it allows you to transfer compressed
audio (and in the future video) through the network that gets decoded on
the target box.

As to 1), yes there are several network transparent sound servers, and
yes there are different apis. Main problem with that isn't the api
though, it's the fact that none of them are designed to be able to
synchronize audio/video over the network, with audio and video possibly
being displayed on different boxes. Afaik MAS is designed to do this.

Concerning the fact mouse and keyboard are in X, the mouse is tightly
bound to the graphics display, mouse movement and pointer on screen are
basically one entity. Keyboard could be handled by another server, but
it has historically been part of X.


P.S.: I don't have much experience with MAS, it just seems to be a
project with exactly the goals needed for network transparent sound and
video. I don't think that should be integrated into X.

-- 
Arwed v. Merkatz
Grimoire Guru for video
Grimoire Guru for xfce
Sourcemage GNU/Linux
http://www.sourcemage.org