22 Dec
2009
22 Dec
'09
6:40 p.m.
Patrick Shirkey wrote:
Hi,
I had a thought that maybe the network sound card should not be using
ethernet but instead wireless 802.11n.
The ralink rt2870 chipset is well supported at full 300Mb/s on Linux and
has open source drivers.
I think this would open up a lot of opportunities with a wireless sound
card.
I'm not sure how many are on the market right now but I haven't heard of
any yet so there is a big opportunity there to fill a gap.
low latency audio over wireless is fundamentally impossible.
it's a shared medium, pretty much like thicknet or any other hub or bus
network. if two endpoints ever send at the same time (and they will),
the packets will clash and trigger resends after a non-deterministic
delay (so as to avoid endless re-clashing if two endpoints happen to be
"in sync").
the only thing that would work over wireless is heavily-buffered media
center stuff for consumers, because nobody cares if there's half a
second delay between your pressing play and the start of the movie.
the only way to make low latency streaming work is to use the link
uni-directionally (i.e. there's only ever one sender per allocated
channel) and to shoot everybody on sight who looks like they might have
any other wireless devices on them. especially the latter might prove
difficult, since it's a non-technical problem with social and legal
implications.