Embedded Linux Conference 2013

This session explains how off-loading audio processing from an application CPU to an audio DSP is made easy using GStreamer. Despite the compute power of multicore application CPUs, the SoC design trend is heterogeneous with specialized subsystems and cores. For power efficiency and hardware cost such SoCs are optimal, for developers they are a pain. In the homogenous case SMP-Linux hides complexities, in the heterogeneous case developers must deal with different tools, shared memory (coherency), multiple OSes, optimization of DSP code, etc. Solutions as remoteproc are a first step in simplifying the use of the different cores on a SoC. We take this basic management and control a step further by leveraging the domain specifics of audio processing. The complexities of off-loading are hidden inside GStreamer elements, while retaining the flexible, plug-and-play graph creation of GStreamer.