Re: Realaudio for GS

[toh@freenet.Victoria.BC.CA (Marc Sira)]

In our last episode, kloesch@nauticom.net (Kevin Loesch) said:

>        Realaudio also takes a massive amount of processing power. The files 
>are decompressed on the fly and would be more than a GS could handle. Even on 
>a pc you need a fast 486(100Mhz+) or a pentium to keep the sound from breaking 
>up.

It depends on the quality (the realaudio version level, effectively). I
have no problems playing version 1 files (a < 14.4k bitstream) on a Powerbook
Duo 230, which is a 33MHz 68030 with no FPU. There isn't even any major
slowdown and the computer is doing a lot in the meantime, with a lame
cooperative multitasking OS. ;)  It seems likely to me that an accelerated
GS might be able to handle 14.4 realaudio files, particularly since the
actual sound playback is less CPU intensive than on a stock Mac or typical
PC clone, and it wouldn't be running an evil semi-software modem like a
PB Duo internal.

28.8 or ISDN quality files are probably out of the question; for one thing,
Progressive hasn't written a decoder that will work without an FPU (on any
system, not that any current multipurpose CPUs lack one).

As for the matter of .ra files only being playable over the net (rather
than saved locally), obviously this is merely the current convention. The
aforementioned Duo 230 is going to a friend of mine, and I've stuck a pile
of interesting interviews from the CBC radio "As It Happens" site on it in
saved Realaudio 1 format. The compression really is quite amazing.

There are still very few things that _really_ require a 100MHz processor. ;)

-- 
Marc Sira			   |
{ub675,toh}@freenet.victoria.bc.ca | "Your god drinks...p-p-peach nectar!"
{aa,xx}382@freenet.carleton.ca	   '