[Flac-dev] Synchronizing a streaming client to the server Was: Idea to possibly improve flac?

[Ben Allison]

The main problem is in the Ogg layer, in my opinion.

Imagine this extreme use-case with __completely made up__ numbers.  This
is a scenario where the server is encoding to FLAC on-the-fly from a raw
PCM input, either from disk or a live stream.

Let's say the FLAC block size is 1024 samples, or 23ms at 44100 Hz.
Let's say each silent block compresses to 1 byte.  Let's also say that the
Ogg packeting layer wants 4096 bytes before creating a page.  Again -
these numbers are completely made up, but illustrate the point.  In this
example, it would take 95 seconds of digital silence before Ogg decided to
send another page out over the network.

If the input audio on the server is coming from a live-source (such as
simulcast of an FM station) or if the disk I/O is very slow, this can be
extremely problematic.

Ben Allison
Principal Software Engineer
Nullsoft, Inc.

> I just thought of something: Given the maximum supported network
> packet size, and the minimum number of channels (probably stereo) for
> a FLAC broadcast stream, it should be possible to calculate the
> absolute longest time that a single network packet could span.  Once
> you know that time, you could simply double it, and then make sure
> the streaming client always buffers up at least that much time before
> playback is started.  Voila - instant protection against starvation
> due to silent frames being compressed to ultra-tiny packets with a
> long delay.
>
> Some of the comments here have talked about low latency, but I would
> say that low latency has no place in an internet streaming
> broadcast.  I mean, the listened have no frame of reference for
> latency anyway, so what does it matter if the latency is really high?
>
> Now that I think about it this way, I'd say that FLAC and OggFLAC
> should not have any real problems due to compression of silent
> frames.  Any place there is a problem should be blamed on bad
> streaming client / player code, not on the format itself.
>
> Brian Willoughby
> Sound Consulting
>
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