Re: [xougen] Re: [Xouvert-general] Network transparentcy and modules

[Craig Ringer]

> btw: why not implementing some MPEG and audio support in the Xserver ? 
> DVD players could try use it first and then fall back to old the method.
> I really would like to see such things in the Xserver, since today
> much of the hardware also supports that - and i dont like direct access
> to the hardware beside the Xserver.

This has been discussed repeatedly before. MPEG support should be 
possible via an X extension, but would require the implementation of 
codecs in an X extension - not overly pretty. People would want support 
for *any* kind of video, not just MPEG.

Sound does not need to be handled in the X server, full stop. A sound 
server is quite fine - look at aRts, esd, etc. At least esd, and 
probably others, are quite capable of having clients on remote hosts - 
just like an X server. If you wanted, it would probably be a relatively 
simple modification to the esd client libraries to have them attempt to 
send sound to the host pointed to by $DISPLAY, if set.

If you chose to do it, a sound server could probably also be implemented 
that supported compressed streaming - either simple gzip compression, or 
transferring compressed audio formats like MPEG 1 layer 3 and Vorbis. Of 
course, you'd need a new soundserver protocol, and would need to 
persuade people to do client support. Icky, and probably not worth it.

The point is that X doesn't interact with sound hardware at all, and 
personally I don't see any reason why it should. That makes things like 
remote hosts without sound more difficult, adds complexity to the X 
server, and requires users who just want remote sound to run X. Better 
to stick with a simple, small sound server like we have now.

Craig Ringer