Names of things

Names of things

[Tom Watson]

A message a while ago mentioned the difficulty in the "proper" names
for things.  While the terms "left" and "right" have been around for a
while, other terms are new to the show.  For instance "master" and
"headphone" mean weird things.  In an effort to make things "easier", I
would like to suggest:

"Front" and "Back".  While "Front" is very obvious, "Back" may not be
intuitive (others preferring "Rear").  The problem is that many people
abbreviate channels by their initials, and "R" is already taken
("Right"), so "Back" is a better choice.  Besides, when 4-channel
stereo was being discussed/standardized back in the 70's, they made
that choice.

I also support the decision to make "Master" refer to a common control
for many levels (more than 2 channels).

I would also like to have a "note" explain somewhere that "LFE" is a
synonym for "Sub_woofer"

Just a few comments.  Alsa is the BEST!

=====
-- 
Tom Watson
tsw@johana.com

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Re: Names of things

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 8 Oct 2003 00:07:57 -0700 (PDT),
Tom Watson wrote:
> 
> A message a while ago mentioned the difficulty in the "proper" names
> for things.  While the terms "left" and "right" have been around for a
> while, other terms are new to the show.  For instance "master" and
> "headphone" mean weird things.

yes, "headphone" is used often in a wrong way.
this control appears usually on ac97 chips.  and the recent ac97 chips
provide the former headphone output as the "true line-out" pin for the
consumer device.  hence, nowdays, most implementation uses headphone
output as the real line-out instead of the old line-out pin.

OTOH, "headphone" in emu10k1 driver refers really to a headphone
jack, for example.

>   In an effort to make things "easier", I
> would like to suggest:
> 
> "Front" and "Back".  While "Front" is very obvious, "Back" may not be
> intuitive (others preferring "Rear").  The problem is that many people
> abbreviate channels by their initials, and "R" is already taken
> ("Right"), so "Back" is a better choice.  Besides, when 4-channel
> stereo was being discussed/standardized back in the 70's, they made
> that choice.

so far, "Surround" (or "Rear") is used for that.
it it too amgibuous?

> I also support the decision to make "Master" refer to a common control
> for many levels (more than 2 channels).
 
well, my understanding of "master" is that it's a controll for all
over other controls.  i.e. if you change "master", all outputs should
be affected.


Takashi


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