OSC / MIDI comparison papers

[Angelo Fraietta-2]

Greetings all

Does anyone have a listing of papers that compare OSC to MIDI, showing
the advantages and shortcomings of each of them

Thanks
--
Dr Angelo Fraietta
A.Eng, A.Mus.A, BA(Hons), Ph.D.

PO Box 859
Hamilton NSW 2303

Home Page


http://www.smartcontroller.com.au/

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[Andy W. Schmeder-2]

On Jan 15, 2008, at 1:43 PM, Angelo Fraietta wrote:

Does anyone have a listing of papers that compare OSC to MIDI, showing 

the advantages and shortcomings of each of them

A matrix of features that we care about and their limits in OSC vs MIDI appears in the poster from the OSC Showcase / Maker Faire 2007.  The PDF of this poster can be obtained here:

http://opensoundcontrol.org/publication/osc-showcase-maker-faire-2007

---

Andy W. Schmeder

andy [at] cnmat.berkeley.edu

phone: [phone] x.313

Programmer/Analyst II

Center for New Music and Audio Technologies

University of California at Berkeley

http://cnmat.berkeley.edu

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[cyrille henry]

Andy W. Schmeder a écrit :

> On Jan 15, 2008, at 1:43 PM, Angelo Fraietta wrote:
>
>> Does anyone have a listing of papers that compare OSC to MIDI, showing
>> the advantages and shortcomings of each of them
>
>
> A matrix of features that we care about and their limits in OSC vs MIDI
> appears in the poster from the OSC Showcase / Maker Faire 2007.  The PDF
> of this poster can be obtained here:
>
> http://opensoundcontrol.org/publication/osc-showcase-maker-faire-2007
>
>

hello,

i agree that osc is better than midi for lot's of aplications, but this matrix is bias.

-a typical exemple in osc is more like this :

/wii/ir/x....,f......
where . is not a letter/number
so i don't think it's "human readable"

-The "Hardware Transport Independent" is in direct conflict with "Data rate":
osc is hardware transport independant, so we can use osc with a 9,6Kb/s serial line.
                           
-Curent OSC transport layer is not really microcontroller friendly.
few dollars microcontroller can easilly deal with midi, but not with curent osc implementation.
a osc implementation on a microcontroler is lots more difficul than midi.

-according to this matrix, OSC is for "music, video, robotic and more", midi is limited to music.
but personally, i saw more "video,robotics and more" aplication using midi than osc.

-where does the 20ms midi clock-sync accuracy theorical limit?

-this chart does not speak about the osc typetag : when implementing a osc recever, why you have to test for float or int if you wish to receive 0?

- i would have prefer to see a typical data rate better than the theorical one.

- i would also loved to see in this matrix a typical loopback latency on curent hardware and software of OSC vs MIDI

best
Cyrille

> ---
>
> Andy W. Schmeder
> andy [at] cnmat.berkeley.edu
> phone: [phone] x.313
>
> Programmer/Analyst II
> Center for New Music and Audio Technologies
> University of California at Berkeley
> http://cnmat.berkeley.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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[Andy W. Schmeder-2]

On Jan 15, 2008, at 3:26 PM, cyrille henry wrote:

/wii/ir/x....,f......

where . is not a letter/number

so i don't think it's "human readable"

The OSC address and typetag sections are null-terminated strings of printable ASCII characters -- therefore, human readable.  However the data section is binary, unlike e.g., XML which is entirely human readable.

MIDI is entirely a binary format -- it has no readable component anywhere.

-The "Hardware Transport Independent" is in direct conflict with "Data rate":

osc is hardware transport independant, so we can use osc with a 9,6Kb/s serial line.

MIDI has a defined hardware transport, OSC does not, so a direct comparison isn't really possible.  The limits are therefore given for the typical case which is MIDI cable vs ethernet.

The limits may not apply to MIDI when it is used in a pure software context or over alternative transports (e.g. RTP-MIDI and possibly some USB MIDI devices).

-Curent OSC transport layer is not really microcontroller friendly. 

few dollars microcontroller can easilly deal with midi, but not with curent osc implementation.

a osc implementation on a microcontroler is lots more difficul than midi.

More difficult perhaps, but in actuality, not by much.  There are several implementations of OSC on microcontrollers.

I would argue that such implementations are in fact easier to work with.  For what its worth, I've written one of those implementations myself (not released yet), so I should know.

-where does the 20ms midi clock-sync accuracy theorical limit?

I can't remember... actually I think it may be wrong as a theoretical limit.

At the very least, that should read "clock precision" not "clock sync accuracy".

At a nominal rate of 120 BPM the MIDI beat clock has a precision of 20msec.

-this chart does not speak about the osc typetag : when implementing a osc recever, why you have to test for float or int if you wish to receive 0?

Zero is the same bit pattern in both floating point and integer.  Perhaps don't understand your question...?

Thank you for the comments--

Andy.

---

Andy W. Schmeder

andy [at] cnmat.berkeley.edu

phone: [phone] x.313

Programmer/Analyst II

Center for New Music and Audio Technologies

University of California at Berkeley

http://cnmat.berkeley.edu

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[Angelo Fraietta-2]

Andy W. Schmeder wrote:

> On Jan 15, 2008, at 3:26 PM, cyrille henry wrote:
>


>
>> -The "Hardware Transport Independent" is in direct conflict with "Data
>> rate":
>> osc is hardware transport independant, so we can use osc with a
>> 9,6Kb/s serial line.
OSC is not hardware transport independent - rather, it does not define a
transport layer

According the the OSC paper I read (Wright, Matthew, and Adrian Freed.
"Open Sound Control: State of the Art 2003), there was an assumption of
+10 MBS for the transmission medium

I think you would also need to take into account the processing power of
the device that is supposed to respond to the OSC message. How many
instruction cycles are required to parse the inbound OSC message.

>
>
> MIDI has a defined hardware transport, OSC does not, so a direct
> comparison isn't really possible.  

A comparison is possible on the equivalent ISO layer. For example, if my
computer was sending a MIDI message to the synthesis engine on the sound
card, the data is never transmitted at lower ISO layers - the data never
runs at 32KB on the computer - but nobody says that it is not MIDI
because it it did not go through a MIDI cable

The limits are therefore given for
> the typical case which is MIDI cable vs ethernet.

This is like comparing the weight of a ball on earth with a truck in
outer space. Even through the mass of the truck is significantly
greater, the gravity on earth makes the ball heavier.

>
> The limits may not apply to MIDI when it is used in a pure software
> context or over alternative transports (e.g. RTP-MIDI and possibly some
> USB MIDI devices).

Shouldn't a comparison be made over

>
>
>> -Curent OSC transport layer is not really microcontroller friendly.

There is no transport layer for OSC - only layers 6 and 7  (and possibly
4 if include the size of the packet as a function of this layer)


>> few dollars microcontroller can easilly deal with midi, but not with
>> curent osc implementation.
>> a osc implementation on a microcontroler is lots more difficul than midi.
>
>
> More difficult perhaps, but in actuality, not by much.  There are
> several implementations of OSC on microcontrollers.

I know, I have developed three of them. Also, my Smart Controller was
the first OSC to Control voltage converter.

>
> I would argue that such implementations are in fact easier to work with.

At the higher level, there is no real difference one the patch has been
defined.


Are there any papers that are critical of OSC? - I have only seen papers
that say how good it is.

If you know of any, please let me know.


--
Dr Angelo Fraietta
A.Eng, A.Mus.A, BA(Hons), Ph.D.

PO Box 859
Hamilton NSW 2303

Home Page


http://www.smartcontroller.com.au/

There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge - that is
CURIOSITY
There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others - that is VANITY
There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve - that is LOVE
     Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 - 1153)

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