Display Port test program (plan)

display-port-audio-test-program.txt

# Display Port Audio Test Program
# -------------------------------
#
# Goal: 
#   To play sound through the attached monitor,
#   connected using a display port cable,
#   without using a passive adapter.
# Purpose:
#   To aid in manual testing of audio for hardware certification
# Requirements:
#   The machine must boot with the DP monitor attached
#   The DP monitor must support sound# 
# Limitations:
#   The program is not defined when using mixed mode (passive HDMI adapter)
#   The program can limit itself to testing only stereo


# Algorithm
# ---------
#
# 1) Interrogate pulse audio to enumerate cards,
#    profiles supported by each card and ports supported by each card
# 2) filter-out all ports not having name ~= "hdmi"
# 3) filter-out all ports having name ~= "not available"
# 4) For the remaining ports, construct a set of profiles they are a part of
# 5a) Configure pulse for the selected card and profile
# 6a) Play a sample sound
# 5/6b) Ply a sample sound through the selected profile

# Implementation Details
# ----------------------
#
# - we cannot use dbus api, it is not available on ubuntu 12.04
# - we have to parse pactl list output
#   - there is a custom format involved, we could parse that
#   - upstream would accept a patch to produce json output
#     - we would have to get patched pulse