MrSinatra;174722 Wrote: > i agree on the visualizations, not my concern. i don't necessarily > agree users would demand video sync "just because" esp if a disclaimer > was present at download. > > however, if the audio had the necessary bw locally, how "behind" would > it be to any video? would it always be noticeable? or only depending? > or would it always grow slowly out of sync over time?I can't say for sure > since I don't know exactly how device drivers work. But I suspect the software is pushing data to the device driver at the exact time the software wants the data to be played. At the same time the software would push video to the graphic card to show on the monitor. If the device driver works this way (which I am not completely sure of) then it would mean that the: - The sound is going through the network (which might be wireless) and into the SqueezeBox and out to the reciever and finally out in the speakers. - The video is going internally in the computer into the graphic card and out to the display.
Obviously there is no way the sound and video would be able to move at the same speed to their final destination. The result would be sync issues between audio and video. One way around this is if the video also went through the SqueezeBox, which isn't possible today, then the SqueezeBox could make sure the video and sound was synchronized. Another way is if the software player had options for delaying the video a little, then the video and audio could arrive at the same time. At least as long as the network speed was exactly the same at all times, which it isn't in most networks especially not in wireless networks. As a side point, if any buffering should happen in this senario if device drivers works as I think it must happen all the time. This mean that when you hit play it will take a while until the music starts. The reason that this works with slimserver is because slimserver sends the sound in advance to SqueezeBox, SqueezeBox starts playing directly with no buffer but then the slimserver sends the data faster than SqueezeBox needs it to fill up the buffer. I suspect this would probably not be possible in a device driver solution, the software probably sends the sound information exactly when it should be played. Please note that if device drivers doesn't work as I think most of the information above is incorrect. The reason I would like the device driver to happen as a 3rd party thing is that SlimDevices/Logitech probably has limted resources and have to choose what they want the developers to do. A device driver is something that most current SqueezeBox owners probably aren't interested in, so it makes much more sense if SlimDevices/Logitech focused on features that most people wanted and left the unusual stuff to 3rd party developers. A device driver is also something that is completely different to implement compared to the existing slimserver code. So I would guess that some additional education/training of the developers would be required. It this instead happened through a 3rd party developer which already have worked with device driver I suspect that the result could be achieved much faster. Anyway, I haven't read all your posts lately, so I am not sure if you have answered these questions already: 1. Is the reason for a device driver just that you want to start playing music from a specific software you already know instead of using the slimserver/SqueezeBox interfaces ? In that case, do you have a specific software in mind or does it have to work with everything ? 2. Is it for both locally stored music and internet radio and other music not stored on the local computer ? 3. Is it just for playing music or are you also thinking about using this as a way of view videos or redirecting sounds in games to SqueezeBox ? I'm asking these questions just to get an idea why you want a device driver. A device driver is probably one solution but there might also be other solutions available that also solves your problem. Regarding GPL, it is definitely no problem making non GPL software that uses open specifications/APIs of GPL software. In that case it would be impossible to sell any commercial software on the Linux platform and such software do exist. -- erland Erland Isaksson 'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page' (http://erland.homeip.net/download) (Developer of TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse, Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library and RandomPlayList plugins) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31324 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
