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. ^*.

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See also