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

Hmm, ok. I am still waiting for my other message to make it to the
public list (held in moderation?).


Anyway, I just raised Audio-ISSUE-106 to suggest standardizing on
DOMHighResTimeStamp everywhere, so we can have more discussion on that
thread.


Adam


On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com> wrote:
> Gah!  yes, sorry, didn't hit reply-all. Only thing in Gmail I'm still not
> quite used to, somehow.
>
> Yes, I agree that it's not great to have so many different timestamp formats
> and reference points.  If the desire is to divorce from wallclock time, then
> I supposed we could do like audioContext does - from when MIDIAccess is
> created.  As written in Jussi's last edit, though, it's "current time"
> (unfortunately, the definition of what that means (ms since UNIX epoch) was
> removed).  I don't have strong feelings.  I mostly disliked
> DOMHighResTimeStamp because it's one more reference, for what is essentially
> a trivial thing (monotonically increasing, number of milliseconds, unrelated
> to wallclock time), but that spec is really defined for uses relating to
> Performance, so it's confusing to read as a solution for this problem.  I
> think we would need to define our own zero point.
>
> I like seconds just because I think if it's not integer anyway, it's easier
> for humans to think that way, but I don't care that strongly.  The newer
> MIDI interfaces in Windows, I note, use a longlong (64bit int) of units of
> 100ns (i.e. tenths of a microsecond, or 0.0001 milliseconds).  I think that
> is kind of confusing, personally.  Seconds are prevalent in the Web Audio
> API, but milliseconds (as ints) are common in other web programming APIs, so
> I could be okay with either.
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Adam Goode <agoode@google.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri Jun 01 13:53:52 GMT-400 2012, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Well there you go - it's been quite a while since I wrote Windows code.
>>>  :)
>>>
>>> >The point of DOMHighResTimeStamp is that it is divorced from
>>> > wallclock time.
>>>
>>> So is audioContext.currentTime.
>>>
>>
>> Hmmm. It's not great to have so many different timestamp formats and
>> reference points. It does make sense for audioContext to have its 0 point at
>> its start time. And there is no "start time" for these raw MIDI events. So
>> deferring to page load time seems fine.
>>
>> But the units are different (seconds in float vs. milliseconds in double),
>> and that seems worth addressing.
>>
>>
>> (Did we drop off the public list with this thread?)
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 10:49 AM, Adam Goode <agoode@google.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 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