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1 | compress_offload.txt |
2 | ===================== | |
3 | Pierre-Louis.Bossart <pierre-louis.bossart@linux.intel.com> | |
4 | Vinod Koul <vinod.koul@linux.intel.com> | |
5 | ||
6 | Overview | |
7 | ||
8 | Since its early days, the ALSA API was defined with PCM support or | |
9 | constant bitrates payloads such as IEC61937 in mind. Arguments and | |
10 | returned values in frames are the norm, making it a challenge to | |
11 | extend the existing API to compressed data streams. | |
12 | ||
13 | In recent years, audio digital signal processors (DSP) were integrated | |
14 | in system-on-chip designs, and DSPs are also integrated in audio | |
15 | codecs. Processing compressed data on such DSPs results in a dramatic | |
16 | reduction of power consumption compared to host-based | |
17 | processing. Support for such hardware has not been very good in Linux, | |
18 | mostly because of a lack of a generic API available in the mainline | |
19 | kernel. | |
20 | ||
c94bed8e | 21 | Rather than requiring a compatibility break with an API change of the |
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22 | ALSA PCM interface, a new 'Compressed Data' API is introduced to |
23 | provide a control and data-streaming interface for audio DSPs. | |
24 | ||
25 | The design of this API was inspired by the 2-year experience with the | |
26 | Intel Moorestown SOC, with many corrections required to upstream the | |
27 | API in the mainline kernel instead of the staging tree and make it | |
28 | usable by others. | |
29 | ||
30 | Requirements | |
31 | ||
32 | The main requirements are: | |
33 | ||
34 | - separation between byte counts and time. Compressed formats may have | |
35 | a header per file, per frame, or no header at all. The payload size | |
36 | may vary from frame-to-frame. As a result, it is not possible to | |
37 | estimate reliably the duration of audio buffers when handling | |
38 | compressed data. Dedicated mechanisms are required to allow for | |
39 | reliable audio-video synchronization, which requires precise | |
40 | reporting of the number of samples rendered at any given time. | |
41 | ||
42 | - Handling of multiple formats. PCM data only requires a specification | |
43 | of the sampling rate, number of channels and bits per sample. In | |
44 | contrast, compressed data comes in a variety of formats. Audio DSPs | |
45 | may also provide support for a limited number of audio encoders and | |
46 | decoders embedded in firmware, or may support more choices through | |
47 | dynamic download of libraries. | |
48 | ||
49 | - Focus on main formats. This API provides support for the most | |
50 | popular formats used for audio and video capture and playback. It is | |
51 | likely that as audio compression technology advances, new formats | |
52 | will be added. | |
53 | ||
54 | - Handling of multiple configurations. Even for a given format like | |
55 | AAC, some implementations may support AAC multichannel but HE-AAC | |
56 | stereo. Likewise WMA10 level M3 may require too much memory and cpu | |
57 | cycles. The new API needs to provide a generic way of listing these | |
58 | formats. | |
59 | ||
60 | - Rendering/Grabbing only. This API does not provide any means of | |
61 | hardware acceleration, where PCM samples are provided back to | |
62 | user-space for additional processing. This API focuses instead on | |
63 | streaming compressed data to a DSP, with the assumption that the | |
64 | decoded samples are routed to a physical output or logical back-end. | |
65 | ||
66 | - Complexity hiding. Existing user-space multimedia frameworks all | |
67 | have existing enums/structures for each compressed format. This new | |
68 | API assumes the existence of a platform-specific compatibility layer | |
69 | to expose, translate and make use of the capabilities of the audio | |
70 | DSP, eg. Android HAL or PulseAudio sinks. By construction, regular | |
71 | applications are not supposed to make use of this API. | |
72 | ||
73 | ||
74 | Design | |
75 | ||
c9f3f2d8 | 76 | The new API shares a number of concepts with the PCM API for flow |
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77 | control. Start, pause, resume, drain and stop commands have the same |
78 | semantics no matter what the content is. | |
79 | ||
80 | The concept of memory ring buffer divided in a set of fragments is | |
81 | borrowed from the ALSA PCM API. However, only sizes in bytes can be | |
82 | specified. | |
83 | ||
84 | Seeks/trick modes are assumed to be handled by the host. | |
85 | ||
86 | The notion of rewinds/forwards is not supported. Data committed to the | |
87 | ring buffer cannot be invalidated, except when dropping all buffers. | |
88 | ||
89 | The Compressed Data API does not make any assumptions on how the data | |
90 | is transmitted to the audio DSP. DMA transfers from main memory to an | |
91 | embedded audio cluster or to a SPI interface for external DSPs are | |
92 | possible. As in the ALSA PCM case, a core set of routines is exposed; | |
93 | each driver implementer will have to write support for a set of | |
94 | mandatory routines and possibly make use of optional ones. | |
95 | ||
96 | The main additions are | |
97 | ||
98 | - get_caps | |
99 | This routine returns the list of audio formats supported. Querying the | |
100 | codecs on a capture stream will return encoders, decoders will be | |
101 | listed for playback streams. | |
102 | ||
103 | - get_codec_caps For each codec, this routine returns a list of | |
104 | capabilities. The intent is to make sure all the capabilities | |
105 | correspond to valid settings, and to minimize the risks of | |
106 | configuration failures. For example, for a complex codec such as AAC, | |
107 | the number of channels supported may depend on a specific profile. If | |
108 | the capabilities were exposed with a single descriptor, it may happen | |
109 | that a specific combination of profiles/channels/formats may not be | |
110 | supported. Likewise, embedded DSPs have limited memory and cpu cycles, | |
111 | it is likely that some implementations make the list of capabilities | |
112 | dynamic and dependent on existing workloads. In addition to codec | |
113 | settings, this routine returns the minimum buffer size handled by the | |
114 | implementation. This information can be a function of the DMA buffer | |
115 | sizes, the number of bytes required to synchronize, etc, and can be | |
116 | used by userspace to define how much needs to be written in the ring | |
117 | buffer before playback can start. | |
118 | ||
119 | - set_params | |
120 | This routine sets the configuration chosen for a specific codec. The | |
121 | most important field in the parameters is the codec type; in most | |
122 | cases decoders will ignore other fields, while encoders will strictly | |
123 | comply to the settings | |
124 | ||
125 | - get_params | |
126 | This routines returns the actual settings used by the DSP. Changes to | |
127 | the settings should remain the exception. | |
128 | ||
129 | - get_timestamp | |
130 | The timestamp becomes a multiple field structure. It lists the number | |
131 | of bytes transferred, the number of samples processed and the number | |
132 | of samples rendered/grabbed. All these values can be used to determine | |
298a4396 | 133 | the average bitrate, figure out if the ring buffer needs to be |
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134 | refilled or the delay due to decoding/encoding/io on the DSP. |
135 | ||
136 | Note that the list of codecs/profiles/modes was derived from the | |
137 | OpenMAX AL specification instead of reinventing the wheel. | |
138 | Modifications include: | |
139 | - Addition of FLAC and IEC formats | |
140 | - Merge of encoder/decoder capabilities | |
141 | - Profiles/modes listed as bitmasks to make descriptors more compact | |
142 | - Addition of set_params for decoders (missing in OpenMAX AL) | |
143 | - Addition of AMR/AMR-WB encoding modes (missing in OpenMAX AL) | |
144 | - Addition of format information for WMA | |
145 | - Addition of encoding options when required (derived from OpenMAX IL) | |
146 | - Addition of rateControlSupported (missing in OpenMAX AL) | |
147 | ||
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148 | Gapless Playback |
149 | ================ | |
150 | When playing thru an album, the decoders have the ability to skip the encoder | |
151 | delay and padding and directly move from one track content to another. The end | |
8d84c197 | 152 | user can perceive this as gapless playback as we don't have silence while |
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153 | switching from one track to another |
154 | ||
155 | Also, there might be low-intensity noises due to encoding. Perfect gapless is | |
156 | difficult to reach with all types of compressed data, but works fine with most | |
157 | music content. The decoder needs to know the encoder delay and encoder padding. | |
158 | So we need to pass this to DSP. This metadata is extracted from ID3/MP4 headers | |
159 | and are not present by default in the bitstream, hence the need for a new | |
160 | interface to pass this information to the DSP. Also DSP and userspace needs to | |
161 | switch from one track to another and start using data for second track. | |
162 | ||
163 | The main additions are: | |
164 | ||
165 | - set_metadata | |
166 | This routine sets the encoder delay and encoder padding. This can be used by | |
167 | decoder to strip the silence. This needs to be set before the data in the track | |
168 | is written. | |
169 | ||
170 | - set_next_track | |
171 | This routine tells DSP that metadata and write operation sent after this would | |
172 | correspond to subsequent track | |
173 | ||
174 | - partial drain | |
175 | This is called when end of file is reached. The userspace can inform DSP that | |
176 | EOF is reached and now DSP can start skipping padding delay. Also next write | |
177 | data would belong to next track | |
178 | ||
179 | Sequence flow for gapless would be: | |
180 | - Open | |
181 | - Get caps / codec caps | |
182 | - Set params | |
183 | - Set metadata of the first track | |
184 | - Fill data of the first track | |
185 | - Trigger start | |
186 | - User-space finished sending all, | |
242658ff | 187 | - Indicate next track data by sending set_next_track |
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188 | - Set metadata of the next track |
189 | - then call partial_drain to flush most of buffer in DSP | |
190 | - Fill data of the next track | |
191 | - DSP switches to second track | |
192 | (note: order for partial_drain and write for next track can be reversed as well) | |
193 | ||
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194 | Not supported: |
195 | ||
196 | - Support for VoIP/circuit-switched calls is not the target of this | |
197 | API. Support for dynamic bit-rate changes would require a tight | |
198 | coupling between the DSP and the host stack, limiting power savings. | |
199 | ||
200 | - Packet-loss concealment is not supported. This would require an | |
201 | additional interface to let the decoder synthesize data when frames | |
202 | are lost during transmission. This may be added in the future. | |
203 | ||
204 | - Volume control/routing is not handled by this API. Devices exposing a | |
205 | compressed data interface will be considered as regular ALSA devices; | |
206 | volume changes and routing information will be provided with regular | |
207 | ALSA kcontrols. | |
208 | ||
209 | - Embedded audio effects. Such effects should be enabled in the same | |
210 | manner, no matter if the input was PCM or compressed. | |
211 | ||
212 | - multichannel IEC encoding. Unclear if this is required. | |
213 | ||
214 | - Encoding/decoding acceleration is not supported as mentioned | |
215 | above. It is possible to route the output of a decoder to a capture | |
216 | stream, or even implement transcoding capabilities. This routing | |
217 | would be enabled with ALSA kcontrols. | |
218 | ||
219 | - Audio policy/resource management. This API does not provide any | |
b327d25c | 220 | hooks to query the utilization of the audio DSP, nor any preemption |
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221 | mechanisms. |
222 | ||
b327d25c | 223 | - No notion of underrun/overrun. Since the bytes written are compressed |
57bd9b8d | 224 | in nature and data written/read doesn't translate directly to |
b327d25c | 225 | rendered output in time, this does not deal with underrun/overrun and |
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226 | maybe dealt in user-library |
227 | ||
228 | Credits: | |
229 | - Mark Brown and Liam Girdwood for discussions on the need for this API | |
230 | - Harsha Priya for her work on intel_sst compressed API | |
231 | - Rakesh Ughreja for valuable feedback | |
232 | - Sing Nallasellan, Sikkandar Madar and Prasanna Samaga for | |
233 | demonstrating and quantifying the benefits of audio offload on a | |
234 | real platform. |