2015-11-03, 18:47
You do not need a license to passthough. You are not decoding anything, just moving unaltered bytes. The license requirements transfer to the amp/receiver/hdtv that DOES the actual decode. That would be like requiring your browser have AC3/DTS licensing because you can download a file that contains AC3/DTS audio. Playing it in a browser is a different story.
As for AC3/AC3-HD, the ATV4/TVOS carries the license for that. iOS devices do not. This has already been discussed on the Apple Developer Forums and 'blessed' by Apple. By the way, AC3 patents expire in 2016-2017, little hard to pin down the exact dates.
As for DTS/DTS-HD, there are ways around it if we still lack licensing when we want to submit. Worst case would be the first release missing native DTS decode. Passthough for both AC3 and DTS will be present, for osx, ios and tvos.
As for AC3/AC3-HD, the ATV4/TVOS carries the license for that. iOS devices do not. This has already been discussed on the Apple Developer Forums and 'blessed' by Apple. By the way, AC3 patents expire in 2016-2017, little hard to pin down the exact dates.
As for DTS/DTS-HD, there are ways around it if we still lack licensing when we want to submit. Worst case would be the first release missing native DTS decode. Passthough for both AC3 and DTS will be present, for osx, ios and tvos.
