Re: Audio-ISSUE-105 (MIDI timestamp resolution): timestamps in MIDI should use High Resolution Time [MIDI API]

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com> wrote:
>
> Although I'm not completely opposed to this change, I'd argue against the point that millisecond resolution is insufficient.  If using hardware MIDI ports, it takes approximately 1/4 of a millisecond to SEND a single byte of data - so it will take approximately 3/4 of a millisecond to simply transfer the data anyway - and the latency in processing at the other end is typically much, much higher than 1ms (I seem to recall around 4-7ms was not atypical for hardware synths, but can't find my reference ATM).
>

The issue is more of jitter, not of processing delay. Though 1ms seems
totally sufficient to me, I could imagine issues with the single byte
timing code (F8) getting some unwanted jitter. But the real win of
this change is monotonicity.

>
> That said, of course, it's not a bad idea to future-proof better than that; many MIDI use cases will never actually see a 5-pin-DIN cable.  However,
>
> 1) I find the usage of DOMHighResTimeStamp very confusing, as it's deliberately chained to (in terms of "zero" point) to the Performance interface.  It doesn't seem to add any value to reference here, since it's simply a double; we would still need to provide a way to get system time in double units, as I don't think using the PerformanceTiming interface is the most intuitive thing to do.  Or suggest that people use Date.now() (even though it's millisecond-precision), which is livable, I suppose.  But we do need to define that.  I would recommend either a) using a double for number of milliseconds, and recommending people use Date.now, or b) (my preference) use a double to represent number of seconds, to be uniform with the Web Audio API.  I'm ambivalent about whether we use the same currentTime from the audioContext as WA or Date.now().
>

The point of DOMHighResTimeStamp is that it is divorced from wallclock
time. All the MIDI implementations use this kind of time stamp (even
Windows, read on).


>
> 2) I would absolutely recommend that we (similar to DOMHighResTimeStamp) explicitly state that implementations are allowed to have millisecond-only precision in their implementation.  The underlying system APIs on Windows are based in milliseconds, for example - unless they're building another API, the time stamps on MIM_DATA are in milliseconds. The underlying API on OSX is a bit harder to determine precision, but I think it is higher.
>

Actually the ONLY part of DirectMusic that is undeprecated (it
disappeared briefly in Vista, then was replaced in a service pack) is
high resolution monotonic MIDI timestamps:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee416788(VS.85).aspx#ID4EFEAC
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943253


So yes, we can specify that the timestamps might only have ms
resolution, but I don't think it's really required.


Adam

>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Jussi Kalliokoski <jussi.kalliokoski@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> This issue is now pending review per https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/rev/b78b7c5e906e .
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Jussi Kalliokoski <jussi.kalliokoski@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Good catch, thank you! As I planned it, the timestamp should have been a floating point value, allowing for sub-millisecond precision, but actually DOMHighResTimeStamp is actually more fit fore this.
>>> I will make the necessary changes to the spec.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Jussi
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Audio Working Group Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Audio-ISSUE-105 (MIDI timestamp resolution): timestamps in MIDI should use High Resolution Time [MIDI API]
>>>>
>>>> http://www.w3.org/2011/audio/track/issues/105
>>>>
>>>> Raised by: Adam Goode
>>>> On product: MIDI API
>>>>
>>>> The current MIDI API specifies timestamp as a long representing "milliseconds from the UNIX Epoch".
>>>>
>>>> For MIDI applications, millisecond resolution is insufficient and can cause noticeable jitter.
>>>>
>>>> Using absolute wallclock time is also problematic, as it is subject to system clock skew.
>>>>
>>>> The MIDI timestamp should use High Resolution Time (DOMHighResTimeStamp), which solves these problems:
>>>> http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/webperf/raw-file/tip/specs/HighResolutionTime/Overview.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>

Received on Saturday, 2 June 2012 20:52:22 UTC