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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: GDC sues Dolby over TMS and 3D audio interoperability
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 11-06-2016 07:20 PM
Dolby always was more friendly to other TMSes since they never really had one of their own. Without the need for a NDA, one could download their API from the tech site. Doremi always required an NDA so they merely didn't offer it to GDC (but did everyone else, it would seem).
I can appreciate not wanting to force everyone into a rigid set of op codes that everyone must bow too. Very quickly, those would become a subset of a feature laden server and then the issue of if some of the features that pre-existed on a particular server were to be adopted as standard features of a DCI system would the originating manufacturer be required to rewrite that which they started to accommodate late-comers...etc.
That said, I could see a big advantage to having some functions standardized like lamp on/off, douser open/close and on the server side what it takes to build a show.
DCI should have required interoperability in order to be "DCI Compliant" That is, all of the APIs should have had to be openly available with the direct intent of interoperability between manufacturers. The same way that magically the HDSDI slot of all DLP projectors will hold all of the IMBs out there because the pinout was standardized. It is a prime example of how the exhibitor and manufacturer win. Anybody could chose anybody's projector or server. Christie tried to lock it in and look how they had to backpedal the Solaria 1/1+ back to the CP2208. I'm pretty sure that Barco's 6E projector now will work with other than the Alchemy too. I will give the Alchemy some slack in that it is a replacement for a standard item (ICP) as well as the mediablock/SM I suppose that Dolby/Doremi, QSC/USL or GDC could do likewise and develop a replacement for the ICP if they want their IMBs to break the 500Mbs bottleneck. Note, Christie was also guilty of not allowing the CAT745 in their projectors at first but did back down on that (They do have a "generic" position but have had a Dolby setting for some time now).
But again, DCI was supposed to be about interoperability as well as the other stuff. The example was given of the DTS, Dolby and SDDS/incompatible format debacle as an example. The whole every projector AND server were required to support both 2K and 4K was to ensure a degree of compatibility and to stave off an anticipated early obsolescence.
You know, giving out one's commands for control is not giving away company secrets. What those commands do internally are still hidden under cover. Just because I say "Play" doesn't mean I know how you did it. It is as stupid as requiring one to obtain a license agreement in order to hit the play button on their media device.
I remember in college having to write "clones" of the BIOS and DOS for the 8088 based machines of the day (in Assembly Language). And all we knew was what the function should do and what was to be received and placed in the registers. And that is how you were graded. How you went about doing your code was your business and unless it was VERY simple, it was expected that everyone would do things differently. Some would call it reverse engineering. You didn't look inside anyone's code. You merely put stuff in and saw how it came out or ensured that if a routine was to perform a particular function, that it did. To this day, I've never seen Microsoft's code though what I wrote (and my classmates) emulated it.
Shoot, even more recently, I've had to "crack" a device that the manufacturer doesn't provide the commands for by similar techniques (they only want it controlled by their controllers). I just stimulated it and seeing what it did and what it returned. I've never laid eyes on any of their published work but merely interpreted what I saw (and it works).
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