Re: AudioContext.maxChannelCount

On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 5:29 AM, Chris Rogers <crogers@google.com> wrote:

> I am reluctant to change that part right now until we've had a chance to
> explore all the ramifications.  As I mentioned before, it gets a bit tricky
> especially when you have multi-channel devices with large number of
> channels, not necessarily connected to speaker system in the way you might
> think.
>

And I responded that it is far easier for the browser to handle such
situations than for Web apps.

If you carry on with the current path, then you are basically requiring
every Web app that wants to produce surround sound to implement their own
logic to check maxChannelCount and, if it's greater than 2 and they care
about the possibility of these unusual multi-channel devices, implement
custom UI to ask the user what to do.

I predict most authors will not create such UI, they'll just set the
channelCount to maxChannelCount and move on if that works for most of their
users.

It has to be the browser that is responsible for mixing multi-channel audio
to the output device configuration. If the platform APIs can't tell us
enough about the output device configuration, and you want to handle these
unusual multi-channel devices, then the browser will have to have its own
UI to plug the gaps in the information from the platform API.

Rob
-- 
q“qIqfq qyqoquq qlqoqvqeq qtqhqoqsqeq qwqhqoq qlqoqvqeq qyqoquq,q qwqhqaqtq
qcqrqeqdqiqtq qiqsq qtqhqaqtq qtqoq qyqoquq?q qEqvqeqnq qsqiqnqnqeqrqsq
qlqoqvqeq qtqhqoqsqeq qwqhqoq qlqoqvqeq qtqhqeqmq.q qAqnqdq qiqfq qyqoquq
qdqoq qgqoqoqdq qtqoq qtqhqoqsqeq qwqhqoq qaqrqeq qgqoqoqdq qtqoq qyqoquq,q
qwqhqaqtq qcqrqeqdqiqtq qiqsq qtqhqaqtq qtqoq qyqoquq?q qEqvqeqnq
qsqiqnqnqeqrqsq qdqoq qtqhqaqtq.q"