[OSC_dev] Everyone Invited - SYNoscopy

[Jeff Mann]

Hi all -

Interesting discussion going on here. Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. 
My use of OSC is perhaps different from most of the applications being 
talked about in this "open media control" discussion.

I'm working more with interactive art installations, kinetic/robotic 
sculpture, physical computing, and so on. So for me, most of the 
concepts of "multimedia" being talked about, i.e. decks, play/pause, 
etc., are not relevant. And even more fundamental concepts like a 
"controller" and "synth/player", tend to make assumptions about overall 
system architecture that are not appropriate for my needs (I've found 
this is also a bias of OSC itself). For example, I would be more 
interested in interactions within networks of autonomous peer nodes with 
various capabilities, behaviours, and intelligence...

On the other hand, there are some topics being addressed here that are 
highly relevant for what I'm working on, and I think for users of OSC in 
general. I'm very eager to see some solutions. For example:

salsaman at xs4all.nl wrote:
 >> On Tue, December 16, 2008 10:13, Gaspard Bucher wrote:
>>>> We are currently all bumping into the fact that OSC is a *partial*
>>>> standard. It says how to adresse methods, but that's about it. Those
>>>> of us building tools that need to interact smoothly with one another
>>>> need some standard ways to get return values, get/set parameters, etc.
>>>>
>>> Right again. This is precisely what is needed.
>> As a minimum we should have:
>>> - a standard for getting/setting/querying values
>>> - standard for getting/setting parameters (including where there can be
>>> a variable number of parameters of various types)
>>> - a "hello" standard for unknown applications
>>> - a method of capability discovery with some standardised methods

One of the most frustrating things about OSC for me - and apparently for 
many others - is the lack of definition for querying values and 
parameters, discovery, and other closely related issues.

For example, the MAKE Controller microcontroller board uses this system:

/servo/1/position 26 - set servo motor 1 to position 26.
/servo/1/position - with no argument, query the current position.
/servo/1/position 26 - this is the response to the above query.

This is all well and good, until you try to get two MAKE controllers to 
talk to each other - board A queries board B, but the response actually 
sets the position of board A's servo...

This might seem like a simplistic example, but consider that this is one 
of the more popular commercial products that implements OSC...

There have been numerous discussions and proposals about these issues in 
OSC, but so far it seems like no consensus at all. I would love to see 
this worked out! So I'm happy to see some interest in this at the moment.

On the other hand, and this is the main point I'd like to make, I don't 
think this has - or should have - anything to do with "multimedia".

I'm sure it's a good idea to make some standardizations, namespaces, 
etc., for general purpose multimedia applications - audio synths, video 
players, etc. - to talk to each other using OSC. And maybe that could 
have a name, like "Open Media Control", similar to the "MIDI Show 
Control", that's based on MIDI. However, I think the above issues about 
queries and so on are issues that pertain to, and need to be solved for, 
OSC in general - and not only in the context of multimedia application 
software. Multimedia applications are just one subset of things that OSC 
can be used for. In other words, it would not be a good idea to think in 
terms of replacing or superceding the name "Open Sound Control" with a 
new and improved "Open Media Control", any more than it would be to 
replace MIDI with MIDI Show Control. We all know that OSC does more than 
sound, but it also does more than media.

I don't want to discourage people from talking about it in the context 
of the "open media control" discussion/wiki - on the contrary, I think 
it's really needed. The desire to do something very practical and useful 
- standardizations for multimedia apps - highlights some of the 
fundamental things missing from OSC in general, and I hope will drive it 
towards some solutions.

So basically I'd suggest a two-pronged approach. The first would be to 
look further at these issues of mechanisms for queries and so on, but in 
a more general OSC scope, so that any solutions will be applicable 
generally in OSC, and not be tied to any of the specifics of multimedia 
apps. Then, building on that to create a more domain-specific set of 
standards for multimedia apps.

Hope this helps,

<Jeff


>>>
>>> - possibly, standard notifications for events (for example, frame_synch
>>> for video, packet_synch for audio)
>>>
>> I'm with you here, but I also think a specialized MIDI-replacing standard
>> is
>> aslo needed (which could be a subgroup of this).
>>
>> No competition here :-)
>> Everyone is welcomned of taking parts of SYNoscopy and incorporate it into
>> OpenMediaControl.
>>
>> greetings,
>> fabb
> 
> 
> 
> Sure, it would be nice to have it as a subgroup of openmediacontrol, and
> it would prove the success of the standard if it could support both audio
> synths and for example video players like LiVES and vlc.
> 
> Gabriel "salsaman"
> 
> 
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