Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>It's a bit funny that there are already a bunch of comments that are stating "There already is, it's called 'X'", each with a different value for X.

It's because the replies are interpreting the op's question differently from the intent.

When op asks: "why there isn't a standard protocol?" -- he's asking "why isn't there a SingleDominantThatWorksOnOnEveryDevice audio protocol that lets me connect devices seamlessly?"

The op's word of "standard" is just doing a lot of heavy lifting to convey a frustration with stuff not working intuitively.

The analogy is TCP/IP being a standard (SingleDominantThatWorksOnOnEveryDevice) network protocol that won over Apple AppleTalk, Novell SPX/IPX, and Microsoft LANMAN NETBIOS.

But many replies interpreted "standard" as "any available existing specification regardless of marketshare or device availability" -- so that's where you get various examples of audio protocols that are idiosyncratic to particular domains which are not analogous to the ubiquity and reliability of TCP/IP. E.g. the Dante audio protocol which doesn't seem relevant to op's use case.

And what's the scope of an "audio protocol"? Is it a "media query of music files" protocol like DLNA? Or is it a "virtual hardware audio device endpoint" like Bluetooth Audio?

Yes, that's what I meant.

Why isn't there a widely interoperable audio-over-the-network transmission protocol I can use, so that when I am playing sound (from a song, a video, or a game), I can hear it on an external speaker? [The scope is just a 'virtual hardware audio device endpoint' like bluetooth audio]

As someone who works on the code for a competitor of Sonos, the answer is that it is hard to do, depending on your requirements.

> ...(from) a video, or a game

So then you need low latency, like less than 10ms? So that lip-sync works, and the game is playable?

Do you need it distributed across different endpoints, also with low latency?

Does it need to run using unreliable WiFi connections, and not kill all audio just because one endpoint is under-performing?

These are all hard, hard enough that doing it well (and keeping it proprietary) makes companies like Sonos big.

OTOH, streaming mp3 from one endpoint to another is trivial.

True enough. Somehow bluetooth audio manages these issues.

I for one would accept latency and the audio going silent (or better, an audio indicator) if the connection isn't up-to-snuff but I don't know if other people would.

> Somehow bluetooth audio manages these issues.

It manages it... sometimes.

I have an NVIDIA Shield I use for my video needs, and attempting to pair my Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones with it results in crappy latency and out-of-sync audio. These are both high end products from respected companies, and they work together with pretty shitty results.

Edit: I just tried this again after writing that and magically things work much better than they did before... but I stick by the general point.

In general, I'd describe the Bluetooth experience as mediocre at best.

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