[Icecast] ices2 metadata update causes gaps

[Paul Martin]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2005 at 12:41:00PM +0200, Michael Smith wrote:
> On 9/23/05, Paul Martin <pm at nowster.zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > Mike... did you look into this? I posted a waveform from a file
> > generated by ogg123 dumping to a wav (so that audio driver problems were
> > eliminated).
> >
> > It looks to me like ices2 is restarting the vorbis encoder in a
> > non-gapless way when it stops and starts the encoding (to change the
> > stream id and update the metadata). Because I'm doing crossfades from
> > one track to another, this shows up. If you were just playing one track
> > after another, letting them play to the end before starting the next
> > one, updating the metadata between tracks, you wouldn't notice it.
> 
> No, I haven't really looked into this. A quick look at the code
> (stream_shared.c around line 150) looks like it's doing the right
> thing - it flushes all the encoded buffers before continuing on with
> the new substream.

Reading the code...

 * If we're resampling, stop and restart the resampler. (Probably not a 
   good move if only the metadata has changed.)

 * Shut down the encoder (and flush any pending buffers).

 * Reset the encoder.

 * Update any metadata.

 * Restart the encoder from scratch.

Assuming this is correct, the next question that arises is "Is Vorbis 
when used this way truly gapless?"

This should be easy to test: get a song, split it into chunks of a large 
prime number[1] of samples, encode the chunks (with differing metadata), 
chain them together, decode to WAV using ogg123 (and maybe some others), 
and look for discontinuities.

[1] Suitable numbers: 224611 (just over 5 seconds), 441631 (just over 10 
seconds)

-- 
Paul Martin <pm at zetnet.net> (work)
  <pm at nowster.zetnet.co.uk> (home)