Re: [linux-audio-dev] design question for HDR

[Paul Barton-Davis]

>>> You don't have to rewrite the entire file after cutting one track if you
>>> map the segments to the sector sizes.
>> 
>> That would imply that you could only cut in segment-sized pieces
>> and/or used a playlist, wouldn't it ?

>No, you could slip a track by any amount and then rewrite the sectors for
>that track. Since the other tracks are in sector size chunks, those sectors
>don't need to be rewritten.

I don't think that you could do this without using raw I/O. The linux
fs abstraction doesn't give you any access to the notion of something
as low level as a disk sector, and trying to use its model of "blocks"
would be potentially problematic, I think. Not sure about this,
though. 

Raw I/O has a number of benefits, but the invisibility of the data to
regular apps is a downside. OTOH, since the data format would already
be "unique", its not much of a downside.

But isn't there another problem ? The sectors on (modern?) disks are
not all the same size ...

--p