[pulseaudio-discuss] new module module-plugin-sink

[Georg Chini]

On 04.05.19 16:42, Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
> сб, 4 мая 2019 г. в 16:17, Georg Chini <georg at chini.tk>:
>> Here is the new version of the header file, based on your feedback.
>> The main changes are:
>>
>> - The create_filter() function now receives the channel maps for input
>> and output.
>> - The create_filter() function receives a kill_filter() function and a
>> module pointer
>>      which makes it possible for the filter to initiate unloading of the
>> module if it
>>      detects that it is no longer applicable.
>> - An output_changed() function was added which communicates current sink
>>     and port name to the filter, so that it can detect if the output has
>> changed.
>>
>> Also I did a bit of cleanup and added a few more comments. Hope it looks
>> better now.
> It definitely looks better.
>
> I am still confused about disable_rewind and max_latency. Let's
> suppose that someone wants to implement a rewindable filter. In this
> case, they need to keep history, because PulseAudio can ask the filter
> to rewind some samples. And, as it is not allowed to say "no", they
> must keep enough history to satisfy any possible rewind request. But
> some upper bound must exist. Do I understand correctly that
> max_latency serves as such upper bound?
>
> Regarding the non-rewindable filters, we do need to limit the latency,
> but I believe it is wrong for each individual filter to specify its
> own value for such limit. It should be a global policy (the same value
> for all non-rewindable sinks), and I don't see any reason for the
> filter to be able to influence it.
>
> Therefore, I believe these two fields can be replaced by one,
> max_rewind, which is the size of history, in samples, that the filter
> is willing to keep. Zero means a non-rewindable filter.
>
That sounds like a good suggestion. I would however think
that it is better if 0 means that the filter will rewind as far as
PA wants it to. There may be filters that are stateless (like the
trivial amplifier example). We could use -1 to disable rewinding.

That would also mean to limit the latency to whatever the filter
can rewind, correct? I would use the maximum of max_rewind
and the default latency for non-rewindable filters as the
max_latency value then, because I don't think it makes sense
to set the maximum latency even smaller than for non-rewindable
filters.

What do you think is reasonable for non-rewindable filters?
50 ms?