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| One Interface, Many Drivers
Buzzer Francois Revol, one of the elite "coding thoroughbreds" in the land of BeOS, came out of the starting gate at a gallop when he learned that 4Front Technologies had open-sourced their audio driver interface. Scarcely two weeks after the announcement, he was already out with a binary that allows this clever "interface layer" to talk to a whole range of various audio hardware. And once he pulls together the loose pieces that integrate it fully with BeOS/Haiku, giving our users access to myriad audio hardware choices, we could be looking at a whole new horserace.
We corralled Francois for a brief interview, and quickly discovered how very little we know of programmer-speak. But interwoven with the technical are tantalizing hints at what could await us once OSS is fully supported in BeOS/Haiku.
LEBUZZ - What is OSS, and what will it bring to Haiku?
FRANCOIS REVOL - OpenSound System is an audio framework for Unix. It started as a soundblaster driver for Linux, then mode drivers were added, and it's now a de-facto API for audio on Unix. It went closed source at some point to make a business out of it. On Linux people wrote ALSA to replace the old GPL version in the kernel, but a lot of applications still
use the OSS API. It has been released under GPL last month. It will bring support for more soundcards in Haiku hopefully. Without having to write a native driver each time.
LEBUZZ - How many more, potentially?
FRANCOIS REVOL - Well the list of supported devices under Linux is quite large.
http://manuals.opensound.com/devlists/Linux.html
LEBUZZ - So the drivers will all be coming from the Linux world.
FRANCOIS REVOL - Yes but hopefully they won't bring linux bloat with them
LEBUZZ - How big of a project is this, to make OSS work with BeOS?
FRANCOIS REVOL - Well I announced the port like 2 weeks after the source was released. The most complex part was to understand how functions call each other and how the build system works. It has to support many platforms, and on Linux for example, it has to support defering building the core module so it can accomodate the many kernel versions around, because Linux lacks a clean driver API, because most drivers are in the kernel source.
LEBUZZ - How far along are you?
FRANCOIS REVOL - For now it loads, publishes the devices in /dev (a bit clumsy yet), and plays some sound from command line apps. There is still some work to do on the locking to ensure it does't crash. Then with an opensound media node it should be accessible from the Media Kit transparently from native applications. The media kit already accesses several types of drivers (old, pre-R4 drivers in /dev/audio/old with the Legacy addon, multi-audio drivers in /dev/audio/multi...), so it's not much of a problem to add another addon.
LEBUZZ - Will OSS for BeOS/Haiku potentially support both input and output on
audio hardware, or playback only?
FRANCOIS REVOL - The drivers support both in duplex, so it should work yes
LEBUZZ - How does this work, related to the Media Preferences? Will it be possible to display audio preferences for the drivers supported by OSS, ie, adjust levels, mute channels, etc?
FRANCOIS REVOL - OSS publishes several devices for each soundcards (like
/dev/oss/atiaudio0/mix0, /dev/oss/atiaudio0/pcm0) to separate the mixer
control and the audio in/out, but the OSS Media Node will just handle this
by sending ioctl operations to the correct file. It just does it a bit differently than the multi audio API but it does expose teh mixer controls in some way to userland so it
should be possible. The addon has to ask the driver and publish a BParameterWeb for it, just like the multiaudio addon does, only differently. Also, each driver can have low level parameters, (like io address, dma stuff) which can be accessed in driver settings file like
native drivers.
LEBUZZ - Well, the obvious question people will having on their mind, and the impossible one to answer with certainty...how long do you think it'll be before people can "get their hands" on this and start trying it with their hardware?
FRANCOIS REVOL - I published a test binary when I posted on the opensound mailing list. It won't work with native apps but allows to test support for cards. Hopefully in some weeks the addon will be able to playback at least. OSS also used to support MIDI, but it's being rewritten
for v4.1 so we'll see later on.
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In life, things seldom come easily, nor is a wholesale solution like this always flawless, but if this does indeed work as advertised, and we suddenly find outselves surrounded with a whole heap of compatible new audio hardware, what an exciting thing it will be for the BeOS community, and Buzzers everywhere!
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| Major Movement on HDA Driver
I'm so pleased to see the new movement on a BeOS/Haiku driver for the HDA (High Definition Audio) standard for audio hardware. Buzzer Ithamar Adema is marching the project forward smartly now, and it appears to be just a matter of time before we have a driver that supports this popular hardware configuration. Already there is some audio playback available, and once that is completed, Ithamar plans to get recording functionality nailed down, then support for multi-jack input and output selection, a feature that will be happy news for those who are developing, or will develop, audio software for Haiku. Hardware based on Intel HD Audio specifications is capable of delivering 192 kHz/32 bit quality for two and 96 kHz/32 bit for up to eight audio channels!
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TuneTracker Moves to Touchscreens
One thing some radio people really miss when moving to computers from analogue-style radio equipment, is pushbuttons. A mouse can handle things ok, but somehow it helps the DJ to be able to have tacticle control; to reach out and hit a button when it's time to start a song or a commercial, or to physically adjust a slider when the volume needs adjusting. It just feels "more right," which sounds unnecessarily ethereal, but in a live radio environment, it seems to make a real difference. That's why touchscreens are so popular at radio stations these days.
For a number of years, TuneTracker Systems has had it on their agenda to add touchscreen support, but it was first things first. Command Center, their foray into high end commercial radio automation, needed to be finished and released. That happened in June of 2006. After the inevitable round of upgrades and touchups that followed, attention could finally turn to other long-desired features such as control of external switcher hardware and, at long-last, the much-desired touchscreen interface; which had been started but back-burnered at least a year earlier.
The coinciding emergence of hardware control and touchscreen control is not accidental. Now that Command Center can switch among multiple, physical input sources, and actually control external physical devices using relay closures (starting a tape deck, locking doors, starting the coffee pot brewing in the morning), all done either through the interface or via automation, it was the most natural thing in the world to make all that functionality a tactile experience for the user. With its on-screen buttons, each configurable to whatever task is desired, the radio operator is literally able to push buttons and start, not only computer events like digital songs, but even external, physical devices, if desired. So when combined with a switcher box, Command Center's touchscreen control truly "rounds the circle" and restores a sense of hands-on control over all aspects of a radio operation.
In the process, Command Center's name has been justified. Now, radio stations and their staff really can take command!
Touchscreen-based systems are expected to be released in the first quarter of 2007.
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Free Version of BePodder Coming
During the next BeGeistert (8-9 Dec, Milan - Italy) , Funky Idea
Software
will show the new version of BePodder mediafeeds agreggator
for BeOS, Haiku
and Zeta. A tool that brings news, journals, broadcasts
and images from all
around the world direct to your desktop.
BePodder Light is the basic version (free download and no time limited)
that
includes many cool features:
- Easy to use yet powerful Graphical User
Interface
- Handles all news/podcast feeds in RSS 0.9, 2.0, Atom, RDF and
iTunes
(up to 10 feeds in the Light version)
- Fully integrated with BFS
(BeOS/Haiku/Zeta file system)
- Integrated podcast, videoblog, imagefeeds,
BitTorrentfeeds, newsfeeds
and Iternationalfeeds built-in OPML directories
with thousands of feeds
- Advanced channels/lists management with drag and
drop support
- Support for more than 10 languages
- Easy to integrate with
other applications like BitTorrent/ Installer /
Unzip / etc.
- players
integration with a new Auto option
- BePodder is 100% adwares/spywares
free
- Zeta (multilanguage) and BeOS R5/Haiku (english only)
- You don't
need an iPod or any kind of MP3 player to use and enjoy BePodder
- The same
licence-keyfile can be use on to unlock BeOS R5, Haiku and
Zeta
version
The registered version adds some more nice features:
-
Unlimited number of channels
- Small Channel view
- Proxy support
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Automatic channels check
- Up to 5 enclosure downloads at the same time.
(multithreading)
- Low price, only 15€ (BePodder team will support the Haiku
project
donating 20% of the cost for every copy sold)
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New Encoder Features: Far From "Lame"
As development continues daily on the ZETA version of BeOS by the folks at Magnussoft, there are routinely exciting new things emerging. Here's one I'm very happy about, and I'm pleased to be able to give you the inside track on it, complete with pictures.
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One of the cool things back in BeOS 5 was the ability to create an MP3 as simply as just dragging a recording out of SoundRecorder, dropping to the desktop, and choosing MP3 from among a variety of listed audio formats that appeared in a popup window. But you were limited to a single, hard-wired default type of MP3 with standardized settings. That was fine if you like being locked into 128 kbps, but it wasn't not terribly practical.
The situation has changed rather dramatically in the new ZETA version of "mp3.encoder", an early version of which I had a chance to try out. Now, when you click the little "Save" icon in SoundRecorder, and select MP3 from a File Format pulldown menu, you're presented with a two-tabbed window full of options that let you tweak the MP3's settings to your heart's delight, assuring you get just the sort of quality, bitrate, etc., you have in mind.
With the addition of this feature, all the programs that access ZETA's built-in, Lame-based MP3 encoder will be able to supply users with a bountiful list of encoding options. Hardly a "lame" development!
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