It made a lot more sense back in the analog days, when figuring out how to encode and decode stereo audio on an LP was non-trivial.
But things like 5.1 audio or HDR or spatial audio aren't that much more than adding a bunch of extra channels/bits to a stream, defining relative power levels, and the signal strength follows a curve, and oh there's some positional metadata.
The heavy lifting is done by compression algorithms which deserve to be patented because they do genuinely non-obvious stuff. Just like the way Dolby got digital audio onto a filmstrip was similarly clever.
But stuff like 5.1 surround sound... it's just channels, man. In the digital world, it seems like it should be awfully easy to design an open standard.
But things like 5.1 audio or HDR or spatial audio aren't that much more than adding a bunch of extra channels/bits to a stream, defining relative power levels, and the signal strength follows a curve, and oh there's some positional metadata.
The heavy lifting is done by compression algorithms which deserve to be patented because they do genuinely non-obvious stuff. Just like the way Dolby got digital audio onto a filmstrip was similarly clever.
But stuff like 5.1 surround sound... it's just channels, man. In the digital world, it seems like it should be awfully easy to design an open standard.