Feature Request: Cycle through audio devices

Submitted by deki on Wed, 2013-01-30 19:11

Forums:

It is possible to cycle through mixer channels by pressing 'x'.
It would be nice to have something similar to change the ALSA output device moc is currently using (instead of having to edit the config and restart moc).

jcf

Wed, 2013-01-30 20:37

... the idea of multiple output devices (either by selection or concurrently) has crossed my mind several times, but I could only think of one very restricted use for it. When we get to MOC 2.7, the possibility exists of being able to set the audio device by input audio file name. Is that what you're trying to do or would you be changing audio device while playing a single file?

tomaszg

Wed, 2013-01-30 20:54

There are some uses and I think we spoke about it before. One that comes to my mind right now would be a possibility to use ALSA pseudodevices of some files, e.g. to do AC3 on-the-fly encoding for multichannel audio files. It could be also done by changing audio file names, but that's not an elegant way to do it.

jcf

Wed, 2013-01-30 22:55

So we have three use cases:

  • deki's physically based one (e.g., sound follows listener),
  • tomaszg's audio characteristics one (e.g., AC3), and
  • One for visually impaired MOC users (i.e., audio navigation cues to a separate speaker).

Does anyone have any others?

deki

Wed, 2013-01-30 21:45

... I didn't mean some automatic switching like by filename.
Sometimes I'm listening with my main speakers, but sometimes I want to listen with my headphones (which are on another device / (external) sound card). So I have to modify the config and restart moc.
I wouldn't mind if switching was only possible between songs, it doesn't have to happen while playing a file.
But some way to manually change it inside moc would be nice.