>> from my point of view, preserving the transmitted events scheduling with a
>maximum accuracy is important as this scheduling is part of the musical
>information itself. However, except considering that the protocol is
>intented to run on a fast local dedicated network, the transport latency
>will introduce an important time distortion. Therefore, a mecanism to
>compensate for the latency variation seems to me to be necessary.
>
>RTP timestamps are used for this.

Sure, it may be used for this but it isn't: MIDI events are played at reception time. 
In MWPP for example, the timestamp is only used to determine wether a packet is too 
late or not. 

>
>> Another point is the efficient use of the transmitted packets: sending one
>packet for each event is probably not the best solution. In this case and
>due to the underlying protocols overhead, the useful information part of a
>packet may become less than 10% of the packet size. Moreover, hardware
>layers such as Ethernet for example, often require a minimum packet size to
>operate correctly.
>
>I think a protocol for realtime MIDI over UDP will always have significant
>protocol overhead, I
>don't see this as a problem however.

Considering a 44 bytes overhead (IP + UDP) + the 4 DMIDI header bytes intended to 
address a specific node and device, sending a full MIDI data flow (about 1000 3-bytes 
events per second) requires nearly 400 kbs when the MIDI rate is 31.25 kbs. It's not a 
problem as long as the corresponding bandwith is available to you. But if you plan to 
address different devices on the same node (for example using a multiport interface), 
you should be able to provide each device with an equivalent full MIDI data flow and 
then the problem seriously increases with the number of devices.

--df

----------------------------------------------
Dominique Fober               <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
----------------------------------------------
GRAME - Centre National de Creation Musicale -
9 rue du Garet  69001 Lyon France
tel:+33 (0)4 720 737 06 fax:+33 (0)4 720 737 01
http://www.grame.fr


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