A media player is one that can playback various media types like pictures, videos, music, etc.
From the time we started knowing about a playback device, it was either the VCR or VCP or Tape Recorder. These were playback and recorders on magnetic tapes with only mono sound. While the VCR/VCP could only playback video and not music/radio, the Tape Recorder did the vice-versa of it. There was no integrated device to do both.
Then came the era of CDs which birth to CD Audio and VCDs which were 1000 times durable, better in quality and supported stereo playback. While a CD player could not playback video, a VCD was always capable of playing back Videos and Music. This was the beginning of an era of Integrated Playback devices that gave new products which could play Audio CDs, Video CDs and also have Radio tuners. Going forward with the advent of computers becoming common, such players also supported MP3 audio discs which could cram in audio found in 15-20 Audio CDs.
Later was the advent of Digital Versatile Disk or DVD. No format in history has ever tasted the success which DVD has tasted so far. It was capable of higher capacities, greater quality, easier to implement copy protection, up to 5.1 channels of distinctive sound, etc. It was truly a mindboggling experience for a movie buff to experience movie and music at par to theater like quality.
That DVDs fuelled Home Theater Systems will be an understatement. With more technological innovations and speedier electronics, DVD players were literally a household device. While a typical 4.37GB DVD could hold DVD quality video and Dolby 5.1 audio, a 8.5GB Dual Layered DVD could hold the high bit-rate DTS audio tracks as well. The parallel improvisation of Home Theater receivers was simply attracting more into the custom home theater bandwagon.
DVD Home Theater Systems became more cheaper with never thought of capabilities at that price. Manufacturers started adding playback of non-DVD formatted media like DVD rips, .wmv files, DivX playback, JPEG playback. USB ports was becoming a mainstream feature which enabled playback of files loaded on to a USB memory Key or HDD.
Now is the age of High Definition content. HDTVs started becoming the regular TV for any household and older CRT based TVs were phased out. SONY had completely stopped producing CRT TVs. HDTVs capable of playing content up to 1080p resolutions have become common with prices falling drastically. The technology is also improving so quickly that a HDTV bought 6 months ago is going into oblivion. This demanded an equivalent source of HD content.
And now is the age of Blu-ray. Bluray is the next generation optical media format that succeeds DVDs. It was pioneered by Sony. Bluray or BD is capable of holding 25GB of data on a single layer and about 50GB on a dual-layered disc. While BD players and recorders are dwindling in prices, the price bracket has not reached a level for mass penetration. BD can hold movie content encoded at 1080p resolution, interactive playback, Lossless HD audio for Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD formats, etc.
While HDTV's were rapidly replacing SDTV's, it was much much faster than BD replacing DVD. When a DVD was played on a HDTV, it was not a true experience that one would want for. In fact many would be in for a rude shock because a SD content looks worse on a HDTV when compared to a SD content on a SDTV. A SDTV can playback a SD content in it's full glory and we know what to expect. But a HDTV has more pixels per inch than a SDTV and hence when supplied with a SD content it stretches to to an unbearable extent. This is particularly worse for Full HDTVs. So to truly enjoy HDTV, one has to upgrade to BD players and also upgrade the SD Setop boxes to HD if the cable company has one to offer.
BD players have come far in terms of loading times, features, etc. Today's BD players can play BDs, upscale SD DVD content to HD, connect to your home network and stream playback from various DLNA enabled devices, connect to Youtube/Netflix, etc., support playback of media out of the box for Divx, WMV, etc. files.
Simultaneously, the power of the internet and computers has been catching up so rapidly that Internet downloads of movies is becoming very common. Rips of movies and various other media files have started hogging the storage space of many media enthusiasts. While not every video or audio file is stored in it's original format, it is imperative to have one device that is capable of playing back such ripped and stripped content.
Here comes the era of Media Players. Media Players are devices that enable playback of content from attached devices or network devices with native support for the most widely used codecs and formats. While there are a host of Media Players in town, an ideal Media Player will have the following capabilities;
- HD playback over HDMI
- Minimum Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 playback and Dolby-TrueHD/DTS-HD pass through.
- USB Ports and eSATA ports for supporting external storage devices.
- Wireless capability or Ethernet for streaming content from Media Server connected to the home network.
- Support for the various widely used formats and codecs out of the box.
A Playstation3 is a true media player but lacks support for some widely used codecs and containers like MKV. Hope Sony will release a software update to do that also.
