Hi,
I am actually thinking to add TLV support to each PCM stream. The reason is to obtain various "static" information from the driver without even opening the PCM stream. The current API lack:
a) get channel info / name / position (e.g. Front Left Speaker) - not sure how to handle multichannel cards - I'm sure that this is something to be user configurable b) get possible channels c) get possible formats d) various inter-PCM-device constraint description (e.g. if S/PDIF PCM stream can be used with analog etc.) e) eventually more information for device name hinting for userspace (current problems for HDA, AC97, USB devices are that we have only one .conf file per driver covering all hardware - we need to detect real device capabilities and show only devices which can be really used)
Opinions?
Jaroslav
----- Jaroslav Kysela perex@perex.cz Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer ALSA Project, Red Hat, Inc.