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>AC-3, like the competing DTS standard, is a non-optional part of various other standards, including ATSC, ... At this point it appears that Dolby has managed
by upofadown 9y ago
>AC-3, like the competing DTS standard, is a non-optional part of various other standards, including ATSC, ...
At this point it appears that Dolby has managed to worm its way into the new ATSC 3 broadcast TV standard as well in the form of something called AC-4.
Dolby started as a tape hiss reduction system that actually was useful. Since that time it has more and more become just a way to extract license fees from companies making electronics that involve audio.
For the TV standard they could of just used the open Opus codec, but since the people who are creating the standards are the ones getting the licensing revenue there is no real incentive to do something like that. These "industry standards" have become a kind of a scam.
So no, Dolby is not all that interested in licensing software implementations of their codecs for random programs. That is simply not where the big money is and it isn't really their business.
- test6554 9y agoI wonder if the big players creating the hardware are part of these patent collectives and are also receiving some of these licensing fees. That would be a good way to keep smaller competitors out of an industry.
- Arqu 9y agoI work for a rather large company that works with audio and video and we used Opus but have since switched to a Dolby based audio stack as it offers much better sound quality, reduced transmission bitrate and is generally more robust. However this needs a direct involvement with Dolby and not just of the shelf stuff.
- upofadown 9y agoSo Dolby has some sort of audio compression method much better than the state of the art that they are keeping secret? Why would they do this?