[mythtv-users] [OT] m4a / aac audio support

Boyd II, Willy wboyd at fulbright.com
Mon Mar 29 11:53:09 EST 2004


>-----Original Message-----
>From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org 
>[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] 
>Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 10:24 AM
>To: Discussion about mythtv
>Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] m4a / aac audio support
>
>
>crap, I hate control-enter-for-send sometimes..  second try..
>
>> It's my understanding that AAC is a standard and is not 
>proprietary... 
>> and therefore would not requite any royalties.  The proprietary part 
>> of iTunes Music Store songs is the Fairplay DRM that Apple uses.
>
>http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/licenseFAQ.html
>
>Who needs to license MPEG-4 AAC patents?
>An MPEG-4 AAC patent license is required for manufacturers or 
>developers of complete (or substantially complete) end-user 
>encoder and/or decoder products, or for 
>manufacturers/developers of component encoder and/or decoder 
>products that are provided directly to end-users.
>
>Also see:  http://faac.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?page=AAC
>
>All mpeg-4 codecs require licensing the patents (that's what 
>the patents are for).  As I understand it, they just haven't 
>finalized what mpeg4 video will be, or how much it will cost 
>people (I have a friend at realnetworks who originally told me 
>this, but it's been a few months so they may have figured one 
>or both of these out), which is why there are still several 
>different codecs that call themselves mpeg4 video.

Hmm... OK, so color me corrected.  I guess that part that tripped me up
is statements like this:  (from the second source you noted)

"Worldwide ISO/IEC open standard (as opposed to proprietary closed
standards e.g. from Microsoft, see also MPEG-4 Systems for an example).
"

AND

"Anyone can create his own implementation, because the latest specs and
demo sources are available for a small fee from the [ISO], older ones as
a free download from the MPEG Audio Subgroup or the MPEG FTP sites and
also from the [ISO]."

So it's definitely not proprietary.  But yeah on the same page it
mentions the expensive and restrictive licensing as a con.  So what's
the difference?  Just trying to understand the issue, not saying you're
wrong.

- Willy

>
>-Chris
>
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