[vlc-devel] [PATCH] RFC: clock/aout: audio preroll discussion

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I don't see how adding a dejitter delay changes anything. The intended play time (date) will be further away, and the core will prepend more zeroes. It's transparent.

Le 20 juin 2018 17:23:20 GMT+03:00, Thomas Guillem <thomas at gllm.fr> a écrit :
>
>On Tue, Jun 19, 2018, at 19:37, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
>> Le tiistaina 19. kesäkuuta 2018, 18.09.32 EEST Thomas Guillem a écrit
>:
>> > Currently, only the pulse audio module is able to start at a given
>time
>> > (because the API allows to start a stream corked). Every other
>modules will
>> > start right after the VLC Start callback.
>> 
>> Err no. Start() does not have any audio data. Most audio outputs
>start on the 
>> first Play(). And that first Play() actually conveys zero padding
>generated by 
>> the core to time the playback correctly.
>
>I didn't know that. Good to know.
>
>> 
>> The problem is that this does not generally work well. It requires
>that the 
>> latency is known correctly up-front. Not all audio drivers/hardware
>can 
>> support this.
>> 
>> > The problem is that the first play often need to be played in the
>future.
>> 
>> That's not a problem: you can always defer audio, if you know how
>long.
>> The opposite would be a problem.
>> 
>> > There is often a 30/50ms pts delay (tested on current master). With
>the
>> > future output clock, this delay should be arround the dejitter
>value of the
>> > vlc_clock_t (200 or 500ms). No problem for pulse audio, but every
>other
>> > modules will fail to start at this given time.
>> 
>> If the audio output makes up a poor latency estimate, then this
>happens. 
>> That's why PulseAudio does corking instead. If you remove the corking
>and 
>> timer from PulseAudio, PulseAudio will simply exhibit the same
>problem.
>> 
>> > We have some choices:
>> > 
>> >  1/ Simplify the date handling of aout modules: all modules behave
>the same
>> >  way, and the core handle the delay (by playing silence when
>needed). So we
>> >  move the delayed start functionally from PulseAudio to the core:
>this is
>> > what this patch is doing.
>> 
>> This is exactly what is already being done if TimeGet() succeeds
>before 
>> playback starts.
>
>So if I understand correctly: for pulseaudio, TimeGet() will fail
>before playback starts (because the uncork is delayed), but it's OK
>since this module handle the deferred start itself. 
>
>For other modules, they should return a valid TimeGet() before playback
>is started in order to play some silence that will correspond to the
>audio device hw delay. Right ?
>
>But how do you handle, in the future clock branch, a first play that is
>deferred by the clock dejitter time (200-500ms) ?
>The core need to play some silence somehow, or should every module
>handle it themselves ?
>
>> 
>> >  2/ Modify the aout API to handle 2 type of aout modules: one like
>> > pulseaudio (that handle a play date), and all the others one.
>> 
>> And this is the only way to get things working somewhat properly
>within the 
>> current system, where the playback time is determined ahead.
>> 
>> > I prefer the solution 1/ since it'll ease future debugging because
>all
>> > modules will behave the same way.
>> 
>> In other words, you want to keep the core as it is and rip out some
>code from 
>> PulseAudio. End result: PulseAudio will work worse and the other
>outputs will 
>> be exactly as broken as before.
>> 
>> Well no thanks.
>> 
>> > If you prefer the solution 2/, we need to think about a proper aout
>API.
>> 
>> I prefer solution 2 and the proper API is what we have right now.
>> 
>> -- 
>> 雷米‧德尼-库尔蒙
>> http://www.remlab.net/
>> 
>> 
>> 
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