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Date: Wed, 15 May 2024 11:17:12 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PATCH v15 00/16] Add audio support in v4l2 framework
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To: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@perex.cz>, Shengjiu Wang
 <shengjiu.wang@gmail.com>,
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Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>,
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 Sebastian Fricke <sebastian.fricke@collabora.com>,
 Shengjiu Wang <shengjiu.wang@nxp.com>, sakari.ailus@iki.fi,
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From: Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@xs4all.nl>
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Hi Jaroslav,

On 5/13/24 13:56, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
> On 09. 05. 24 13:13, Jaroslav Kysela wrote:
>> On 09. 05. 24 12:44, Shengjiu Wang wrote:
>>>>> mem2mem is just like the decoder in the compress pipeline. which is
>>>>> one of the components in the pipeline.
>>>>
>>>> I was thinking of loopback with endpoints using compress streams,
>>>> without physical endpoint, something like:
>>>>
>>>> compress playback (to feed data from userspace) -> DSP (processing) ->
>>>> compress capture (send data back to userspace)
>>>>
>>>> Unless I'm missing something, you should be able to process data as fast
>>>> as you can feed it and consume it in such case.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Actually in the beginning I tried this,  but it did not work well.
>>> ALSA needs time control for playback and capture, playback and capture
>>> needs to synchronize.  Usually the playback and capture pipeline is
>>> independent in ALSA design,  but in this case, the playback and capture
>>> should synchronize, they are not independent.
>>
>> The core compress API core no strict timing constraints. You can eventually0
>> have two half-duplex compress devices, if you like to have really independent
>> mechanism. If something is missing in API, you can extend this API (like to
>> inform the user space that it's a producer/consumer processing without any
>> relation to the real time). I like this idea.
> 
> I was thinking more about this. If I am right, the mentioned use in gstreamer 
> is supposed to run the conversion (DSP) job in "one shot" (can be handled 
> using one system call like blocking ioctl).  The goal is just to offload the 
> CPU work to the DSP (co-processor). If there are no requirements for the 
> queuing, we can implement this ioctl in the compress ALSA API easily using the 
> data management through the dma-buf API. We can eventually define a new 
> direction (enum snd_compr_direction) like SND_COMPRESS_CONVERT or so to allow 
> handle this new data scheme. The API may be extended later on real demand, of 
> course.
> 
> Otherwise all pieces are already in the current ALSA compress API 
> (capabilities, params, enumeration). The realtime controls may be created 
> using ALSA control API.

So does this mean that Shengjiu should attempt to use this ALSA approach first?

If there is a way to do this reasonably cleanly in the ALSA API, then that
obviously is much better from my perspective as a media maintainer.

My understanding was always that it can't be done (or at least not without
a major effort) in ALSA, and in that case V4L2 is a decent plan B, but based
on this I gather that it is possible in ALSA after all.

So can I shelf this patch series for now?

Regards,

	Hans