[Jack-Devel] Why frame sizes are limited to the powers of 2?

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 11:58:25PM -0700, Yuri wrote:

> The Opus codec (http://opus-codec.org/) doesn't like such frame
> sizes. It defines frame sizes in milliseconds, and allows 5 ms, 10
> ms, 20 ms, 25 ms, ... which in case of 48,000 sample rate are never
> a power of two.
> 
> It seems like Jack shouldn't be so strict in limiting frame rates to
> the powers of 2.
> 
> 
> How to solve this problem?

Just put some buffering between the jack callback and the codec.
You will need this anyway, as you can't assume that the codec and
whatever is at the other end of the codec (file, network,...) is
real-time safe. In practice you can be pretty sure it won't be.
 
Jack is typically used to interconnect a soundcard and any number
of applications. What if two applications have different preferred
frame sizes ? Which one should win and impose its choice on all
the others ? Forcing Jack to use a frame size required by any
app is not a practical solution except in some trivial cases,
e.g. when the app is the only one using Jack.

Ciao, 

-- 
FA

A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)