[dinjo_jo]

Why is RIM not including support for AC3 audio or release SDK to allow developers to allow support for AC3.

Most of videos has lose-less audio and not including support for them is a fail how much is the licensing cost for AC3 ?

[kerry6]

It comes down to licensing, AC3 Codec for mobile platforms are not truly free.. But common video uses layer 3 audio..if your a developer, but you should check into the licensing for it..come up with a decent video app with AC3 audio and I'll buy it..

[ChrisRH]

I am pretty sure Dolby owns the license for this, I think their licensing costs are high when you consider the relatively low or free costs for other codecs. I would rather they spend money bringing other items to the software.

[samab]

Most of the illegally ripped/torrent media files may have ac3 --- but NONE of the actual legal mobile downloads use ac3, they all use aac.

[Mercury]

Yup Dolby owns the AC3 codec and yes on computers we can download programs and codecs that by pass this, but the straight up media player in windows can't play AC3 media. There are no work arounds yet for the Playbook sadly I rip a bunch of my blurays into MKV with AC3 or DTS HD and stream to my PS3, i'd love the ability to play MKV's with AC3 codecs on my playbook when I travel.

Now given this article was done Sept 2011 hopefully we should be getting support soon

http://crackberry.com/rim-settles-pa...-pay-royalties

[samab]

Read the original news article --- it is a settlement for AAC, not AC3.

RIM to Pay Dolby Royalties to End Lawsuits Over Audio Patents - Bloomberg

There is NO point of having AC3 in mobile devices:

(1) you don't have the hard drive storage to store the high bit rate file
(2) you don't have any content owners selling mobile download/streaming content that have high bit rate AC3 audio
(3) the actual AC3 codec isn't designed for low bit rate usage
(4) the audio chip makers wants to save silicon space and power consumption, and the AC3 codec wasn't designed for mobile usage --- therefore none of the smartphone/tablet audio chip can do AC3 hardware decode.

[RMCD123]

What is ac3

[dinjo_jo]

So how does Android platform support AC3 ?

[Hawnz]

Playbook, Android and iOS don't support ac3 natively. But in iOS and Android, there are 3rd party apps that will play it. RIM needs to approve apps that will play ac3.

[samab]

Playbook, Android and iOS don't support ac3 natively. But in iOS and Android, there are 3rd party apps that will play it. RIM needs to approve apps that will play ac3.

As I said it earlier, NO mobile audio chipset can handle ac3 in hardware --- so even if you can download some sort of 3rd party app that will decode ac3, it would be a software decode only. You are going to get unacceptable performance and unacceptable battery life.

Video playback woes: 720p mkv - h.264 w/ AC3 audio

So there is NO point of getting ac3 decode from 3rd party software either.

[dinjo_jo]

Dice Player on Android does HW decoding !

Can we write to RIM to enable the support if yes where can i shoot a email

[kb5zht]

Ha....we cant even get silverlight.

[samab]

Dice Player on Android does HW decoding !

Can we write to RIM to enable the support if yes where can i shoot a email

Hit and miss for ac3 with Dice Player (and you are crippled with 720p video on OMAP4 chip).

Diceplayer supports Galaxy nexus - plays MKV/AVI with Full HW acceleration [Archive] - xda-developers

Ha....we cant even get silverlight.

You are NEVER going to get silverlight. Microsoft doesn't even want silverlight.

[dinjo_jo]

^ So why can't Dice player kind of player be included in PB , i tried side loading Dice Player but it force closes

[dinjo_jo]

So how can we write to RIM to enable support for this ?

[aesteral]

You can try using this app: Buy WatchMore - Download WatchMore - Buy Apps from BlackBerry App World , it converts audio in videos to a supported format directly on the Playbook. It's kinda slow, though, but works.

[dinjo_jo]

Has anyone tried any trial ?

[samab]

^ So why can't Dice player kind of player be included in PB , i tried side loading Dice Player but it force closes

Dice Player uses Android's native codes --- that's why you can't sideload it to the Playbook.

And if you read the thread that I linked --- it's a hit and miss even for people who rooted their android phones and overclocked them. And the audio is handled by software decoder. And the battery life is going to be super bad with the audio handled by software decoder.

AC3 is a high bit rate codec that was never designed for the mobile environment in mind. Which means that it will never be hardware accelerated in audio chip silicon inside tablets and smartphones.

[dinjo_jo]

So are you trying to say RIM cannot introduce those codecs ? I had Dice Player and it plays each and ever file and i have each and every video with basic as well as advanced profile for each codec and it plays for all formats.So software decode is possible right ?

I saw that WatchMore app i'll try to get that app.

[CountOfGamble]

Here is the catch.

" WatchMore does that by performing a processing of your video file (which takes up to 1/7th of a total runtime of your video) and creating a new video file which you can watch in your Video Player app."

If your video file is 2 hours long it will take up to 17 minutes for the new file to be created. Not a perfect solution by any means.

[dinjo_jo]

yeah i know that but atleast a step forward

[samab]

So are you trying to say RIM cannot introduce those codecs ? I had Dice Player and it plays each and ever file and i have each and every video with basic as well as advanced profile for each codec and it plays for all formats.So software decode is possible right ?

I saw that WatchMore app i'll try to get that app.

Of course, RIM can introduce those codecs. But why would they do it?

(1) There is ZERO legal mobile content that is encoded in ac3.
(2) RIM has to pay Dolby a licensing fee which Playbook users will end up paying for.
(3) It will kill you battery life because NONE of the mobile audio chip has ac3 hardware accelerated.

And the only reason why you can download Dice Player is because they got their codec from open source ffmpeg project and Dolby won't sue small indie developers because they have zero money.

[dinjo_jo]

Of course, RIM can introduce those codecs. But why would they do it?

(1) There is ZERO legal mobile content that is encoded in ac3.
(2) RIM has to pay Dolby a licensing fee which Playbook users will end up paying for.
(3) It will kill you battery life because NONE of the mobile audio chip has ac3 hardware accelerated.

And the only reason why you can download Dice Player is because they got their codec from open source ffmpeg project and Dolby won't sue small indie developers because they have zero money.

1. What do you think is mobile content ? Does giving a tablet which supports 1080p you want 3gp playing on them ? Whats the point when most content of 720p and 1080p is AC3 and DTS.
2. Most companies has paid for licensing not sure why RIM can't , thats why its called competition
3. battery life on playbook is good enough so can last a movie atleast bring the support.

[FF22]

1. What do you think is mobile content ? Does giving a tablet which supports 1080p you want 3gp playing on them ? Whats the point when most content of 720p and 1080p is AC3 and DTS.
2. Most companies has paid for licensing not sure why RIM can't , thats why its called competition
3. battery life on playbook is good enough so can last a movie atleast bring the support.

You have some good points - that is, give people the option of watching such videos where they can weigh whether they can live with shorter battery life while watching an ac3 video.

I think, more to the point, are the licensing fees. Right now, rim might just not want to shell out more money for a device that has a much lower than original price.

[CountOfGamble]

Native ac3 support is not needed and RIM does not have to shell out licensing money for this. What we need on the Playbook are proper video players which are available on Android and iOS operating systems that can decode pretty much everything. WatchMore is the first app of that kind available through the AppWorld. My hat is off to the developer for coming up with this. Hopefully, in future, he will be able to update the app to play the videos instantaneously. I will purchase the app and support the cause since he is the pioneer of this movement.