Re: [codec] draft-ietf-codec-oggopus and "album" gain

[Ian Nartowicz <[e-mail]>]

<snip>

>I thought the only confusion there was "how do I turn off album gain
>if there isn't an explicit album gain tag?" - given that you MUST NOT
>disable the output_gain, which may or may not have been calibrated to
>R128 album gain levels.
>
>You still MUST NOT turn off output gain, even if R128_ALBUM_GAIN=0
>is explicitly specified, since the raw file still could be at "I'm
>50 meters from ground zero of an atomic test" levels.  That still
>doesn't imply *anything* about what the output_gain is or means.
>
>But we've given you an explicit album gain tag now that you can
>switch on or off if it's not zero.  I'm not sure what the remaining
>confusion really is, but indeed, let's find it and clear it up.
>
>  Cheers,
>  Ron
>
And so we're back to square one.

There's no confusion here.  I have pointed up a perfectly reasonable and
widespread requirement to sometimes, at the user's choice, play back music *as
encoded* (and sometimes normalised to R128).  You don't accept that this
is a legitimate requirement, even making up bizarre examples to somehow refute
real things that are happening in real software.

I do understand the desire for "just works" level adjustment in the majority of
software, but I ask for recognition that some specialist software requires more
stringent control of the playback parameters.  I even offered what I believe is
a better all-round solution of the output gain setting the desired playback
level and the two tags each containing the *entire* R128 normalisation
adjustment, to be subtracted out if desired while still leaving the rest of the
output gain in place.

Whenever we get close to a form of words that accepts this requirement as a
possibility, albeit far short of properly supporting it, it slips away again.
I'm out of ideas.

--ian