[pulseaudio-discuss] Per-app flat volume adjustment is highly unintuitive, if mathematically consistent.

[CJ van den Berg]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 02:05:23AM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Thu, 28.05.09 01:47, CJ van den Berg (cj at vdbonline.com) wrote:
> > On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 01:33:48AM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> > > On Thu, 28.05.09 00:53, CJ van den Berg (cj at vdbonline.com) wrote:
> > > > Well, I think the stream volume should ‘push’ the reference volume. ie.
> > > > if stream volume > reference volume then reference volume == stream
> > > > volume. The would be pretty intuitive if you ask me.
> > > 
> > > Doesn't work either since this reintroduces all the problems that made
> > > us come up with the concept of the ref volume in the first place:
> > > 
> > > If a stored volume for a stream says 2 dB more than ref volume, then
> > > when we apply this we will change the ref volume itself (since we need
> > > to 'push' it as you suggest). i.e. before the stream appeared we where
> > > at ref volume x, when it appeared we set the ref volume to x+2dB.
> > 
> > This doesn’t make sense. If the stream volume slider ‘pushes’ the ref
> > volume slider, then the stream volume can never be > 0 dB (relative to
> > the ref volume). For legacy stored stream volumes > 0 dB, just round
> > them down to 0 dB. And there is no need to store it after rounding
> > either.
> 
> The entries in the db are note only controlled by m-s-r but also
> by the UI tools.
> 
> But I must admit that right now this suggestion actually makes more
> sense to me than all other suggestins we have discussed.
> 
> I need to think about this a bit more. And probably implement it to
> see in which ways this logic would fail in the end... ;-)

There is one issue that I think might come up with the concept of
‘pushing’ the ref vol. What happens to other streams?

My gut feeling is that they should compensate so that they stay at the
same absolute volume, but that could be tricky to implement, especially
considering stored stream volume values. In fact, it is probably not
really worth the effort. Probably just compensating active streams would be
enough to make it feel intuitive.

Of course, the other option is to drag the other streams along for the
ride. Which would make pushing the ref vol via a stream vol exactly the
same as just moving the ref vol (at least with regards to movements in
the upwards direction). That would not be quite as cool, but at least
its intuitive and consistent for active stream vols and stored stream
vols.

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