[LAD] "enhanced event port" LV2 extension proposal

[Dave Robillard]

On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 14:56 -0500, Dave Robillard wrote:
> No argument that it's faster.  With separate int fractional parts it's
> even probably cleaner.  I may be convinced...
> 
> Taking a step back, it would be nice to have these events (being
> generic) able to use something other than frame timestamps, for future
> dispatching/scheduled type event systems.  OSC uses 64 big fixed point
> absolute time stamps, giving a resolution of about 200 picoseconds
> absolute time (epoch January 1, 1900).  This is equivalent to NTP time
> stamps apparently - ie huge precedent.
> 
> Whether stamps are in frames or absolute time could be a property of the
> port.  Maybe we should up it to 64 bits fixed point?  The additional 32
> bits aside, doing that gives us all the range or precision in frames
> needed, and the ability to map to a widespread absolute timestamp
> format, and parity with OSC.  That's a lot of pros...
> 
> (This may sound a bit esoteric, but to do something like Max right, you
> need absolute time stamps).
> 
> Currently in MIDI we have 64 bits in there anyway.. I never thought of
> using fixed point, but the OSC/NTP parity and potential for very precise
> absolute time stamps is very, very tasty to me.
> 
> Also, the frame part would be a uint32_t - equivalent to Jack MIDI
> timestamps, another win (and cutting out more conversion overhead).

Another thought on 32:32 fixed point with a 'timestamp type' concept:
tempo time.

You could use these stamps at beats:ticks time stamps with excellent
range/resolution.  Actually now that I think of it I've run into exactly
this problem in Ardour MIDI with floating point tempo-time-stamps.
32:32 stamps like this would be excellent in a sequencer, I would
definitely use them in Ardour.

With the same event struct we can get:

- Sub-sample accurate frame timestamps (Jack MIDI stamps + resolution)

- Absolute timestamps with sub-nanosecond resolution (OSC equivalent)

- Tempo relative timestamps with much higher resolution than any
existing MIDI/sequencer/etc gear I know of 

++

-DR-