[Intel-gfx] [alsa-devel] [RFC] set up an sync channel between audio and display driver (i.e. ALSA and DRM)

[Jaroslav Kysela]

Date 20.5.2014 14:43, Thierry Reding wrote:
> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 12:04:38PM +0200, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>> Also adding dri-devel and linux-media. Please don't forget these lists for
>> the next round.
>> -Daniel
>>
>> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 12:02:04PM +0200, Daniel Vetter wrote:
>>> Adding Greg just as an fyi since we've chatted briefly about the avsink
>>> bus. Comments below.
>>> -Daniel
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 02:52:19AM +0000, Lin, Mengdong wrote:
>>>> This RFC is based on previous discussion to set up a generic communication channel between display and audio driver and
>>>> an internal design of Intel MCG/VPG HDMI audio driver. It's still an initial draft and your advice would be appreciated
>>>> to improve the design.
>>>>
>>>> The basic idea is to create a new avsink module and let both drm and alsa depend on it.
>>>> This new module provides a framework and APIs for synchronization between the display and audio driver.
>>>>
>>>> 1. Display/Audio Client
>>>>
>>>> The avsink core provides APIs to create, register and lookup a display/audio client.
>>>> A specific display driver (eg. i915) or audio driver (eg. HD-Audio driver) can create a client, add some resources
>>>> objects (shared power wells, display outputs, and audio inputs, register ops) to the client, and then register this
>>>> client to avisink core. The peer driver can look up a registered client by a name or type, or both. If a client gives
>>>> a valid peer client name on registration, avsink core will bind the two clients as peer for each other. And we
>>>> expect a display client and an audio client to be peers for each other in a system.
>>>>
>>>> int avsink_new_client ( const char *name,
>>>>                             int type,   /* client type, display or audio */
>>>>                             struct module *module,
>>>>                             void *context,
>>>>                             const char *peer_name,
>>>>                             struct avsink_client **client_ret);
>>>>
>>>> int avsink_free_client (struct avsink_client *client);
>>>
>>>
>>> Hm, my idea was to create a new avsink bus and let vga drivers register
>>> devices on that thing and audio drivers register as drivers. There's a bit
>>> more work involved in creating a full-blown bus, but it has a lot of
>>> upsides:
>>> - Established infrastructure for matching drivers (i.e. audio drivers)
>>>   against devices (i.e. avsinks exported by gfx drivers).
>>> - Module refcounting.
>>> - power domain handling and well-integrated into runtime pm.
>>> - Allows integration into componentized device framework since we're
>>>   dealing with a real struct device.
>>> - Better decoupling between gfx and audio side since registration is done
>>>   at runtime.
>>> - We can attach drv private date which the audio driver needs.
> 
> I think this would be another case where the interface framework[0]
> could potentially be used. It doesn't give you all of the above, but
> there's no reason it couldn't be extended. Then again, adding too much
> would end up duplicating more of the driver core, so if something really
> heavy-weight is required here, then the interface framework is not the
> best option.
> 
> [0]: https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/5/13/525

This looks like the right direction. I would go in this way rather than
create specific A/V grouping mechanisms. This seems to be applicable to
more use cases.

				Jaroslav

-- 
Jaroslav Kysela <perex at perex.cz>
Linux Kernel Sound Maintainer
ALSA Project; Red Hat, Inc.