GoingDeep: Elliot H Omiya, Larry Osterman and Frank Yerrace: Inside Windows 7 - Audio Stack

GoingDeep

One of the central engineering and design themes of Windows 7 is efficiency: efficiency in user experience (things work as and when expected, reliably), efficiency in processing, execution, diagnostics, performance, scheduling, window managment, graphics, desktop search, etc. Well, not surprising...

Running time
1h2m
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29.00MB

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Episode synopsis

One of the central engineering and design themes of Windows 7 is efficiency: efficiency in user experience (things work as and when expected, reliably), efficiency in processing, execution, diagnostics, performance, scheduling, window managment, graphics, desktop search, etc. Well, not surprisingly, Windows 7's audio system has been engineered to provide very efficient user experience (when you plug your headphones in the system streams music to your headphones as expected. When you remove them Windows will switch the stream to flow into your speakers - this is known as real time stream switching - but how does it work, exactly?). What, exactly, is new in the Windows audio system? What's been improved since Vista? What is sound, really? (Yes, we talk about this at the end of the interview - interesting stuff indeed). You first learned about some of the updates to Windows audio in an interview with Larry in September '08. We dig into more detail here (whiteboard included plus we discuss a few things you probably do not know about...)

Here, Architect Elliot H Omiya, Principal Software Developer Larry Osterman and Principal Software Developer Frank Yerrace take us through the details of Windows 7 audio, including some history, some design decisions, some hard problems and overall a great conversation about how Windows makes noise (or music - it's all relative :)).

Enjoy. Lots to learn here. Elliot, Larry, Frank and the Windows audio team have done excellent work in this iteration of Windows. Find some time (I know. It's hard.) Get comfortable and learn all about the innerworkings of Windows 7's audio.

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