Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!phaedrus.kralizec.net.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!news.netspace.net.au!news.mira.net.au!inquo!nntp.uio.no!news.radio.cz!CESspool!news.maxwell.syr.edu!demos!news1.best.com!nntp1.ba.best.com!not-for-mail From: dillon@flea.best.net (Matt Dillon) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.sys.sgi.misc Subject: Re: no such thing as a "general user community" Date: 22 Mar 1997 01:49:45 -0800 Organization: BEST Internet Communications, Inc. Lines: 35 Message-ID: <5h09vp$mtr@flea.best.net> References: <331BB7DD.28EC@net5.net> <5gsgsm$c5l@gazette.engr.sgi.com> <5gt4n5$9cc@flea.best.net> <5gv3h4$968@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: flea.best.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:37539 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:6426 comp.sys.sgi.misc:29359 :In article <5gv3h4$968@prometheus.acsu.buffalo.edu>, :John Whitley <whitley@cs.buffalo.edu> wrote: :>Matt Dillon <dillon@flea.best.net> wrote: :>>:Doug Cook <cook@candiru.engr.sgi.com> wrote: :>>:>I disagree. Latency is the main bottleneck for multitrack sound :>>:>editing, particularly where many tracks are involved and short :... John, I've done this stuff. It isn't a big deal. You don't appreciate the capabilities of modern platforms. You don't NEED a realtime guarentee from the disk for audio. All you need is a sufficiently sized FIFO (which you make out of main memory).. say around a megabyte. There is no latency issue unless real-time interactive changes in the audio stream are required (where real-time in this case means: "on the order of miliseconds"). All of the audio DMA synchronization is then done with a realtime process working out of the memory buffer. If you are pushing midi, its even easier. You don't need striping, you don't need (nor can you get) disk guarentees, not unless you turn off the thermal recal (which some people do) and also turn off bad-sector remapping (which most people forget to do), and certainly not if the system is paging turned on. Oh, I forgot.. are you going to sync to the spindle too? As far as 'realtime interactive multimedia' goes... I was talking about multi-track mixing, not audio web serving. Audio web serving is even EASIER to accomplish. Now, if you want to give me an EXAMPLE of the audio situation you are refering to that requires a predictable disk latency, I am all ears. -Matt