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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