Re: System Sounds Through GStreamer

[Thomas Vander Stichele <thomas apestaart org>]

Hi,

> > That said, using GStreamer (and more specifically, gst-gconf
> > accompanying library) gives you bonus point in flexibility, since
> > changing default output method is as easy as setting appropriate key in
> > GConf. But that still doesn't invalidate need for sound server on
> > machines with lower-end cards.
> 
>   No no no, don't go down this road.  If people complain about esd
> latency now, just try replacing it with GStreamer and you'll soon find
> out what latency really means.

Hi Gustavo,

this is nothing personal, but that's just FUD.  First of all, there are
two latency-related things esd has problems with.  One is "time between
asking to play something and actually playing something".  The second is
"an application using esd doesn't know how big this latency is"

The first is important for ding sounds and accessibility (think
text-to-speech of selected widgets).  The second is important for
synchronizing multiple audio programs/channels, or audio with video.
 
>   I don't want to leave vague statements.  Simply put, building
> GStreamer pipelines is too slow, and reusing/caching sound effects in
> GStreamer doesn't work because it is too buggy.

You didn't want to leave vague statements, but you did.  Building
pipelines is too slow for what ? In what condition ? We have lots of
apps that create pipelines on the fly and do it very quickly.

Reusing sounds doesn't work ? What bugs do you see ? It happily works in
a bunch of apps that have been written.

>   As an example, look at the crappy sound in monkey-bubble to see what I
> mean.  [Disclaimer: I think monkey-bubble is a great program, I'm not
> blaming its author]

We should probably look at monkey-bubble then.  How certain are you that
the author is using GStreamer correctly ? Since there are lots of little
small apps that test speed of pipeline construction, and reusing sounds,
I'd be surprised if it wouldn't work correctly when done correctly.

Corrolary to your meaningless statement:  if I write a GTK app that
creates lots of unnecessary widgets in my main window and lots of
resizes, taking 5 secs to start up, does that mean GTK is slow ? If I
then do all these things from five different threads I create without
grabbing thread locks, and it crashes, does that mean GTK is buggy ?

Or does it mean that I am not using it correctly ?

Thomas

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