[alsa-devel] What does snd_pcm_delay() actually return?

[Takashi Iwai]

At Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:00:06 +0200,
Lennart Poettering wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 12.06.08 14:08, Takashi Iwai (tiwai at suse.de) wrote:
> 
> > AFAIK, the problem here is that the handling of hwptr isn't
> > inconsistent in the pulse plugin.  The definition of hwptr is the
> > point being played (or at least, the point where it was already
> > processed).  So, it's fine that you take the network latency into
> > account for calculation of hwptr like the pulse delay callback
> > actually does.
> > 
> > But, then, pointer callback also must contain the same latency.  If
> > the hwptr with network latency doesn't work well, then delay callback
> > shouldn't have the latency as well.
> 
> But we need the network latency in there, because it is necessary for
> doing a/v synchronization. The network latency can be quite
> substantial. 

That's why I suggest to fix hwptr to consider the network latency in
the first place.

> The "hw_ptr/appl_ptr" is just too simple to cover the networked
> cases. 

Likely.  The hwptr/applptr model was designed for PCI-DMA h/w, and
doesn't suit with the queue style implementation, indeed.  IOW, it's
optimized for mmap-style access.


Takashi