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I'm sure some one will correct me if I'm wrong up as far as I know pass through just pass the audio along with out touching it and you need to have an AVR or some such to decoding the audio signal.
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Yep, that's correct. There are two different features that both involve AC3 and DTS.
One is software decoding of AC3 and DTS, for using on TVs and AVRs that can't directly process AC3/DTS. Software decoding technically requires a license from those who own those formats, and at least one of them got mad at OUYA for offering XBMC in their store without paying it.
The other is AC3 and DTS passthrough, where the raw data is sent to an AVR that can directly process it (potentially increasing audio quality as well). Because this is just shuffling data, passthrough does not require a license.
If you sideload XBMC from XBMC.org, you get both with no extra cost.
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We could try to submit it, but since Dolby or the other company is already keeping an eye on the OUYA store, it would probably get taken down within a day. Or OUYA might not want to risk getting into more trouble and might not accept our unmodified version.
It's a tricky situation that even has some of us wondering about the Google Play store and the Amazon Fire store. I'm honestly not sure what the best course of action will be for official stores, but hopefully we can spread the news to all users about where to get the full, official, version from.
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The main thing that the official version lacks apart from side loading is that it doesn't appear in the play section on ouya. It would nice if this could be added for Gotham if a way do that doesn't adversely effect other platforms.
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2014-05-14, 03:53
(This post was last modified: 2014-05-14, 03:54 by IhuckleberryI.)
I wonder if the "ouya everywhere" initiative and its partnerships could open this close door and keep dolby satisfied. If a partnership with a console or hardware device that has an entitled dolby license could enable an xbmc "more open" version to be in the store especially if its a shared store across platforms. Could be a loop hole?
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(2014-05-14, 03:53)IhuckleberryI Wrote: I wonder if the "ouya everywhere" initiative and its partnerships could open this close door and keep dolby satisfied. If a partnership with a console or hardware device that has an entitled dolby license could enable an xbmc "more open" version to be in the store especially if its a shared store across platforms. Could be a loop hole?
We wondered something like this regarding being in the Google Play Store. There are a number of general Android devices that are licensed for those codecs already by the manufacturer of the device, and such a license should then extend to additional software that is loaded on the device (if I understand correctly). Basically, you paid for it with the hardware itself, on some devices. However, Google Play doesn't check to see if a given device is licensed or not, so there would be nothing stopping someone from downloading and installing it on non-licensed hardware, even if the intent was to only run it on licensed hardware.
You'd think they would allow that, because it would be the user that is then violating the license rather than Google or the author of the app. I guess they didn't buy that because they cracked down on AC3/DTS software decoding for a ton of apps on Google Play.
