[pulseaudio-discuss] Handling of port latency offsets

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Fri, 2017-02-10 at 14:38 +0100, Georg Chini wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> during my work on module-loopback I came upon an issue regarding the 
> handling
> of the port latency offsets.
> The functions pa_{source,sink}_get_latency_within_thread() return the 
> latencies
> including the offset. Those functions are used to determine the amount 
> that has
> to be rewound during a sink move and also to calculate the time a volume 
> change
> is delayed.
> 
> I think it is wrong in those situations to include the offset, 
> especially if a user sets
> very large or very negative offsets. If you have a large negative offset 
> for example,
> the sink will never be rewound on a move because get_latency_in_thread() 
> always
> returns 0. If the offset is large and positive, you might end up 
> rewinding too much,
> although this is limited by max_rewind.
> A similar thought applies to the delay of the volume changes, although 
> it is surely
> less critical there.
> 
> Am I right or do I miss something?

You're right. The total latency is not the same thing as the rewindable
amount. I think there's a FIXME comment about this somewhere in the
stream moving code.

> Would it be a good idea to let the functions return a structure 
> containing the
> actual latency and the offset in separate variables and let the caller 
> sort out
> if it needs the offset or not?

The term "actual latency" includes the offset, if the offset is
correct. The important distinction is between "total latency" and
"rewindable amount". And yes, it would be a good idea to report these
separately.

-- 
Tanu

https://www.patreon.com/tanuk