DVD player

Encyclopedia : D : DV : DVD : DVD player

---

This page relates to a hardware device used to play DVDs. For the Apple software program, see DVD Player (Apple).

A DVD player is a device for playing discs produced under the DVD Video standard. Most hardware DVD players have to be connected to a television set; there are also some small portable devices which have an LCD screen attached.

A DVD player has to complete these tasks:

• Read a DVD disc in ISO - UDF version 1.2 format
• optionally decrypt the data with either CSS and/or Macrovision
• decode the MPEG-2 video stream with a maximum of 10 Mbit/s (peak) or 8 Mbit/s (continuous)
• decode sound in MP2, PCM or AC-3 format and output (with optional AC-3 to stereo downsampling) on stereo connector, optical or electric digital connector
• output a video signal, either an analog one (in PAL, SECAM or NTSC format) on the composite, s-video, or component video connectors, or a digital one on the DVI or HDMI connectors

Most DVD players also allow users to play audio CDs (CDDA, MP3, etc.) and Video CDs (VCD) and include a home cinema decoder (i.e. Dolby Digital, Digital Theatre Systems (DTS)). Some newer devices also play videos in the MPEG-4 ASP video compression format (such as DivX) popular on the Internet.

As of 2005, retail prices for such a device, depending on its optional features (such as digital sound or video output), start between 30 and 80 USD/euros. They are usually cheaper than VCRs.

By far the largest producer of DVD players is China; in 2002 they produced 30 million players, more than 70% of the world output. These producers have to pay about US$20 per player in license fees, to the patent holders of the DVD technology (Sony, Philips, Toshiba and AOL Time Warner) as well as for MPEG-2 licenses. To avoid these fees, China has developed the EVD standard as an intended successor of DVD; as of 2004, EVD players were only being sold in China.

Software DVD players are programs that allow to view DVD videos on a computer with a DVD-ROM drive. Some examples are the VLC media player and MPlayer (both free software), as well as WinDVD, PowerDVD and DVD Player. [link].

See also

• CD
• CD-ROM
• VCR
• DVD recorder

 

---

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

?