Re: Gnome-media

["Darragh O'brien - Sun Microsystems Ireland - Desktop Applications Do100715 Middleware - Software Engineer" <Darragh Obrien ireland sun com>]

Hi, 

I've completed a cursory and subjective analysis of grecord and
below is what I've found. It might be easier to rewrite the
application or replace it with another rather than try to fix it
e.g. when playing/recording a file it currently forks and the stop
callback sends a kill signal to the child, rather heavy handed?! 

1. Supported file format analysis (all at 8kHz):

WAV:
----
8-bit PCM mono    - very noisy
8-bit PCM stereo  - okay

16-bit PCM mono   - okay
16-bit PCM stereo - noisy

AU:
---
8-bit PCM mono    - no sound output
8-bit PCM stereo  - no sound output

16-bit PCM mono   - okay
16-bit PCM stereo - noisy

AIFF:
-----
For all formats -
Audio File Library: error 5: Unix read failed

ULAW:
-----
8-bit mono   - okay
8-bit stereo - noisy

ALAW:
-----
For all formats -
au.c:120: failed assertion `0'

2. The progress bar indicator is broken - it either doesn't move or
its movement is jerky.

3. There is a significant delay between pressing play and hearing
anything.

4. The displayed audio file encoding information is often incorrect.

Should a replacement be chosen, maybe it shouldn't be Esound reliant?
I find the sampling frequency convertor in the latter to introduce a
lot of noise. Users should have the right to listen to audio without
distortion! Has anyone investigated alternatives to Esound's (linear?)
interpolation such as band limited interpolation?

Cheers,
Darragh.

> X-Unix-From: ejarvi megsinet net  Fri Dec  1 23:20:22 2000
> Delivered-To: gnome-sound-list gnome org
> To: gnome-sound-list gnome org
> Subject: Gnome-media
> Content-Disposition: inline
> User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i
> X-BeenThere: gnome-sound-list gnome org
> X-Loop: gnome-sound-list gnome org
> X-Mailman-Version: 2.0beta5
> List-Id: GNOME Sounds <gnome-sound-list.gnome.org>
> 
> I've done a bit of digging, at the request of Dan.
> Gnome-media is/was falling behind on development and bug fixes. Add the fact
> that it was (seemingly) maintainerless.
> 
> Email to the past maintainer bounces with user unknown, but I just noticed that
> pat gnu org has put himself or herself into the MAINTAINERS file in cvs. :)
> 
> The author, Gregory McLean, of vumeter will be taking a look at the app this
> week, and will do a release of vumeter. He might take a look at grecord, too.
> 
> Email to the author of grecord, is undeliverable so far.
> 
> So nows the time to submit bug reports. ;)
>  
> Erik
> -- 
> All music aspires to the condition of muzak.
> 
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