DVD player
The first players appeared in Japan on November 1, 1996, followed by the United States on March 31, 1997, with distribution limited to only seven major cities for the first six months.
DVD-ROM drives from Toshiba, Pioneer, Panasonic, Hitachi, and Sony began appearing in sample quantities as early as January 1997, but none were available before May.
The first PC upgrade kits (a combination of DVD-ROM drive and hardware decoder card) became available from Creative Labs, Hi-Val, and Diamond Multimedia in April and May 1997.
The first DVD-Audio players were released in Japan by Pioneer in late 1999, but they did not play copy-protected discs.
To play a DVD smoothly, it needs to be able to decode the MPEG-2 video stream with a maximum bit rate of 10 Mbit/s at peak and 8 Mbit/s continuously.
However, Blu-ray players are typically backwards compatible, meaning they will play DVDs.
Built-in controls on the main unit's panel such as a four-directional buttons vary depending on model.
[4] Additionally, most DVD players allow users to play audio CDs (CD-DA, MP3, etc.)
However most line doublers used in these players are not able to achieve the anticipated inverse telecine functionality.
Most systems include an optional digital audio connector for this task, which is then paired with a similar input on the amplifier.
In Europe (but not most other PAL areas), SCART connectors are generally used, which can carry composite and analog RGB interlaced video signals (RGB can be progressive, but not all DVD players and displays support this mode) or Y/C (S-Video), as well as analog two-channel sound and automatic 4:3 or 16:9 (widescreen) switching on a single convenient multi-wire cable.
Some DVD players and set-top boxes offer YPbPr component video signals over the wires in the SCART connector intended for RGB, though this violates the official specification and manual configuration is again necessary.
HDMI is a digital connection for carrying high-definition video, similar to DVI.
By no means, however, will the resulting signal be high-definition video; that is, aside from optional deinterlacing, upconverting generally consists of merely scaling the video's dimensions to match that of higher resolution formats, foregoing the scaling that would normally occur in the output device.
As of 2014[update], retail prices for such a device, depending on its optional features (such as digital sound or video output), start between 30 and 80 USD/Euro.
In the battle to succeed and to improve upon the role of the DVD player as the mainstream medium for stored audiovisual content on optical disc, there were two major contestants: the HD DVD player and the Blu-ray player, utilizing two incompatible technologies that reproduced higher resolution video images and more complete audio information than was possible with DVD.
