The sfront Reference Manual

By John Lazzaro and John Wawrzynek, CS Division, UC Berkeley.

Introduction

Welcome to the reference manual for sfront, a translator that converts MP4-SA files into efficient C programs that generate audio.

Sfront supports sound generation for interactive applications. It can support on-line streaming and off-line rendering applications. Sfront also works well as a scripting tool for audio signal processing, in both batch and interactive applications.

This reference manual explains how to install and use sfront, and how to add drivers and make modifications to the programs. To learn about how to write SAOL and SASL programs, see the MP4-SA book.

Organization

The first part of the manual is a guide to using sfront to compile MP4-SA.

Part I/1 describes how to install sfront, and includes instructions on downloading, compiling, and testing the system.

Part I/2 describes how to use sfront for decoding and encoding MP4-SA files. Part I/3 describes real-time sfront operation (including plug-ins).

Parts I/4 and I/5 document reference materials.

The second part of the manual is a programmers guide to sfront.

Part II/1 shows how to use sfront as a sound engine in other applications, and introduces the driver interface as the way to add new code to sfront itself.

Part II/2 explains the control driver interface, used to to add code to sfront to control the sound generation process.

Part II/3 explains the audio driver interface, used to add code to sfront to send audio streams into and out of the sound engine.

Next:Installing Sfront.

Table of Contents

Part I. Users Guide

1. Installing Sfront

2. File Rendering

3. Real-Time Operation

4. Command-line Options
5. Change Log and License

Part II. Programmer's Guide

1. Developing with Sfront

2. Control Drivers

3. Audio Drivers

Copyright 1999 John Lazzaro and John Wawrzynek.