Don't forget that there are at least two cards (Sonorus STUDI/O and
Creamware TDAT-16 - is anyone on this list using them?) which can
provide a single 16-ch WAVE device, and there  are a few more which
offer 8-ch devices, so there is no imperative need to limit WAVE files
to mono or stereo. This also goes for AIFF files. Creamware have
promised that they will provide Linux drivers for the new PULSAR, when
more urgent tasks such as a Mac driver are completed. So there is little
to be lost in providing for at least 8-ch file output now, for both WAV
and AIFF.

I have a pointer to the Microsoft document on my website. It is very
detailed, and enough in fact to begin coding. I doubt if there will be
material changes between that and the final publication. The main change
they made (something I asked for :-) ) was to add the floating-point
format. 

If you are going to use a format argument, I think there should then be
a mechanism to #define a format in terms of speaker positions (as
defined in the MS document) an init time (could even be an extension to
the nchnls element of the orc header). 

The main thing is to devise a system which can be extended easily, for
when new specific formats appear, and which is flexible in terms of
channel routing. One reason for defining speaker positions is that it
would be plausible on a m/c card to allocate two channels as a stereo
monitor output (or independent pair), and the remaining 6, say, for 5.1
or G-format output. The stero pair could be chans 1 and 2, or 7 and 8.
So people might want Csound output the start at Channel 3, for example.

My main point is that multi-channel file and card support implies a
whole lot more than just have 8-ch opcodes. Speaker assignments,
positional audio and so on demand a whole raft of new software
facilties, most of which I can hardly guess at present!

Millenium? Bah, humbug; this is far more exciting!

Richard Dobson

  


Gabriel Maldonado wrote:
> 
> Santa Claus is arriving!
> 
> I've just finished to write some opcodes for multi-channel files.
> The new opcode 'fout' allow the output to a file of any number of audio channels (for now
> the limit is arbitrary locked to 64, bat can be increased). It supports .wav format for
> mono and stereo files in integer, raw format (without header) for 16 bit integer and 32
> bit floating-point with any number of channels. In future, when the standard for
> multichannel files will be definitively defined, it will support any format.


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