[alsa-devel] [PATCH 2/2] alsa-lib: bring pcm.h and pcm.c in sync with the kernel list

[Daniel Mack]

Hi Andreas,

On 28.03.2013 05:58, Andreas Koch wrote:
>> Am I right to assume that in your case it's the same as for DoP, 
>> IOW, oldest in MSB?
> 
> Good point - thanks for bringing it up - another can of worms.
> With Windows having a little endian philosophy we started early on 
> with the first DSD workstation by putting the oldest sample in the 
> LSB position. ASIO came along and adopted the same thing, but then 
> extended support for the opposite as well. Rigisystems (offering OEM 
> modules for USB audio) came along about a year ago and insisted that 
> there is only their way, i.e. putting the oldest bit in the MSB 
> position. I tried to explain to them that there are already hundreds 
> of products out in the market that do it differently, but that didn't 
> matter to them. The result is that now we have implementations with 
> both. Up until now that was not a huge issue, because there is no 
> generic Windows driver and every hardware manufacturer had to have a 
> custom driver.
> Now of course, with your heroic effort in creating a generic driver 
> that would help everyone, we have a mess. Some DACs expect little 
> endian (mine and others as well) and others (all that are based on 
> Rigisystems modules) big endian positions.
> 
> Since the time I had the discussions with Rigisystems I didn't have 
> any further communication with them. Maybe it is a good idea to touch 
> base with them again and find out what the latest is. I will try my 
> contact there and let you know.

Did you hear back from them yet? Do you think we should allocate types
for Big Endian DOP formats?


Thanks,
Daniel