[CM] multiuser audio editing environment

Unk_Err_ error@balticom.lv
Sun, 08 Jul 2007 08:08:32 +0000


good morning list.



I have been considering how useful would be to have multiple users
working on the same project, especialy such as an audio track editing or
some graphical production.

there are a few ways of implimenting it, depending where the users
located and how they would like to organise their work..

well, probably for an audio project it could good just to start with a
single machine which would have two monitors connected to it and two
keyborad + pointer devices attached to each screen. that's because of
the real-time issues and the simplicity for the first try.

there are more complex way to be considered later , e.g. using different
machines and a network filesystem, or using DMX (distributed multi-head
X server) .

first thing i'd like to ask, if it would be doable with Snd - to have
multiple view of the same sound file, so we run it on one screen and
then do something so there is a new window poping up and we just drag it
to the second screen for the second user to work on ..

regarding the audio output, let's presume that at firts users will use
the same interface and agree when each of them would like to hear the
output ..
this is not very convinient, but just for the first experiment will do
fine.
then after jackd can be used , i gues it can be set that for each next
portion of output a new jack channel can be used, and that may be routed
to users headphone according to the local needs.


as i have also thought, this may be implemeted in such a way, that Snd
is first invoked as sort of console process, withou a gui and then from
there the two (or more) windows with the same file are opend, or
something similar.. it might even be start with -separate switch and
then programmed in such a way that each new widget comes out as double
or triple ..


do you think this could be done and would be quite usefull ?


also another way i meantioned above - using a network filesystem ..
it would be very simple to edit two copies separatly and then compare
and merge the two versions.. possibly implementing something as cool as
snddiff ;)
but the metter of this experiment is to get people working together at
the same time on the same thing. in such a way we would be able to break
the usual barier of the very common issue, that only an individual is
working on a computer based creative project! 

so the question is, if that would be possible to have the same audiofile
being syncroniously edited by snd runing separately on two machines and
the flie located on a sort of network fileserver. we might consider some
extra reimplementations of the network filesystem and/or some means of
communication between instances of Snd, so the work could be syncronised
in a way.


------
best regards,

ilay d/