DVD player - Definition and Overview

A DVD player is a device for playing video DVDs. 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 disk in UDF version 2 format
• optionally decrypt the data with either CSS or Macrovision
• decode the MPEG-2 video stream with a maximum of 10 Mbit/s (peak) or 8 Mbit/s (continuous)
• decode sound in MPEG, 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 color video signal connector, or a digital one on the DVI output connector

Most DVD players also allow users to play audio CDs (CDDA, MP3, etc.) and video CDs and include a Home cinema decoder (i.e. Dolby Digital). Some newer devices also play videos in the DivX video compression format popular on the internet.

As of 2004, retail prices for such a device, depending on its optional features (such as digital sound or video output), start between 40 and 80 USD/euros.

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, Pioneer and LG Electronics) 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.

See also: CD, CD-ROM, VCR, DVD recorder