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

[Lennart Poettering]

On Wed, 27.05.09 11:07, Colin Guthrie (gmane at colin.guthr.ie) wrote:

>> In essence...applying my per-app ratios automatically on the fly,
>> whenever something comes up?  I'll be honest, I didn't really think of
>> it like -that-.  That sounds awesome enough that I might need to give
>> it another chance.
>
> Yes!
>
> The way I understand it, and apologies if I'm wrong here, is that  
> Banshess want's 80% and it's the only app playing. In order to achieve  
> that result, pulse does not scale the stream at all but sets the  
> underlying hardware volume to 80% (but in dB's yada yada!). So the net  
> result is I get sound at the right volume.
>
> Then another stream joins that wants 100% So, pulse with start scaling  
> the Banshee stream to ensure it is scaled in software to 80%, and turn  
> up the underlying hardware volume to 100%. Net result is that Banshee  
> continues playing at the same level and sounds the same but the new  
> stream can be louder.
>
> Essentially, whenever possible pulse is off-loading the scaling to the  
> h/w, meaning less work in software = less load, and better quality audio  
> due to the use of the full range of the DAC.
>
> Hope that's right!

Yes it is!

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
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