On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 04:16:11AM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: > On Wed, 27.05.09 12:02, Finn Thain (fthain at telegraphics.com.au) wrote: > > On Wed, 27 May 2009, Lennart Poettering wrote: > > > You are misunderstanding the flat volume logic. > > Probably. > > But since attenuator knobs don't tweak each other (rather I am in > > control), I think you can read what I wrote as arguing against flat volume > > logic, on the grounds of intuitive behaviour. > > Sorry, I don't buy this. PA is not KDE. We try to handle things > automatically if we can and only expose a minimal set of controls. > > I am trying my best to merge as many sliders in our pipeline into > one as possible. Sure it takes away control. But that's the purpose of > the whole think. I realize I often deviate significantly from the norm, but I do like parts of that idea. Specifically the "minimal" parts. I don't want to be mucking around with per-app volume sliders at all. Just normalize all the streams so they play at exactly the same loudness(*) relative to a common reference, and give me a single attenuation/gain control knob at the end of the pipeline that sets that reference...preferably a physical knob, actually, but software emulation of a physical knob is sometimes acceptable. BTW, When I write "attenuation/gain", I really do mean gain, in software, and I know it can lead to clipping distortion. Some distortion is acceptable if it helps make bad recordings of speech intelligible, and necessary if the audio hardware's output is weak relative to ambient noise levels. Google talks seem to need this sort of processing more than other recordings in my experience. (*) yes I know "loudness" is subjective, and normalization is awful. I'm listening to a computer playing crappy mp3's and videos and telling me about my incoming email over a Bluetooth headset while riding a bus or a bike. I don't need accurate audio rendering, I just need it all to have the same volume before it gets sent to the headset. Once I'm on the road, the only convenient control I have at any point in the system is the headset's volume control. I'm not trying to get my system THX-certified, and I actually consider the inability to accurately render double-digit-dB loudness changes at all to be a feature. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 197 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: <http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/attachments/20090529/2e9d1f96/attachment.pgp>
