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Is sigmatel the only party that needs to be involved? What about the decoder software?


Decoders tend to be licensed from the patent holder in source or library form so alternatives may need to be found for some formats (not the bsd-licensed ones of course ).

The audio playback code is designed to accomodate third party decoders so adding alternative ones should be straightforward (as long as they work )

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What about the visuals software?


That's all part of the codebase, so if you licensed it you would get them.

Cheers, John