playaifc(1)                                                        playaifc(1)


NAME
     playaifc, playaiff  - play an AIFF-C (or AIFF)  audio sample file

SYNOPSIS
     playaifc [options] filename [filename2 ...]
     playaiff [options] filename [filename2 ...]

DESCRIPTION
     playaifc parses AIFF-C (and/or AIFF) file(s) containing 8-bit or 16-bit
     audio sample data (single channel, stereo, or 4-channel) and plays the
     samples through the audio hardware.  playaifc reads the contents of the
     AIFF/AIFF-C Common and Sound Data chunks, and skips all other chunks. The
     hardware sample rate is modified, if possible, so that it agrees with the
     value in the Common chunk. By default, the hardware sample rate will not
     be modified if another program is using an output audio port at a
     conflictly rate. The -r (for "rude") option will override this behavior
     and change the output sample rate regardless of output port use.

     playaifc supports real-time decompression for G.711 mu-law mono or stereo
     8-KHz, 16-bit data, and for G.722 mono or stereo 16-KHz data, 16-bit.
     Note that the AIFF-C header identifier flags for these two compression
     algorithms are currently recognized only by playaifc and other programs
     written on top of the SGI audio file library. Note also that the Apple
     proprietary compression schemes mentioned in the AIFF-C specification
     cannot be decoded by SGI software. Consequently, AIFF-C files which are
     moved between different system platforms should contain only
     noncompressed audio sample data.

     If everything parses correctly, playaifc returns a 0 value when it has
     finished playing the input file(s).  If there is an error, playaifc
     returns 1.

     Playaiff is a link to  playaiff which is installed for backward
     compatibility. The two programs behave identically except that playaiff
     by default changes the output sample rate (equivalent to playaifc with
     the -r option.

OPTIONS
     -h   help: print a usage statement.

     -v   verbose: detail info to stdout.

     -q   quiet: suppress errors messages.

     -d  <device>
          device: specify the audio device to which to direct output.

     -p   polite: before modifying the global output sample rate in the IRIS
          Audio Processor, first check to see whether any other output ports
          are currently active; if any other processes have open output ports,
          don't modify the output rate


     -r   rude: change the output sample rate regardless of output ports in
          use


FILES
     Source code for playaifc is installed here:
          /usr/share/src/dmedia/soundcommands

BUGS
     To play back files containing sample data which is compressed using
     G.722, MPEG, or Aware algorithms, you will need to run playaifc with
     nondegrading high priority (this is especially true for stereo compressed
     data).

     If being run as root, the priority is set to NDPNORMMAX which is the
     highest normal process priority.  If run as a user, the process is set to
     the highest non-degrading priority allowed by the system.  This parameter
     is unfortunately by default lower than any normal process, but can be
     changed using systune(1M).  Alternately, see the man page npri(1) for
     information about how to set custom priorities and time slices.

     playaifc doesn't restore the hardware output sample rate to its original
     value when it finishes playing the AIFF-C / AIFF sample data files.

SEE ALSO
     recordaifc(1), apanel(1), aiff2aifc(1), aifcresample(1), aifccompress(1)


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