Digital media player
A digital media player's operating system may provide a search engine for locating content available across multiple services and installed apps.
[3] Media players are often designed for compactness and affordability, and tend to have small or non-existent hardware displays other than simple LED lights to indicate whether the device is powered on.
Some more commonly used alternative names include: By November 2000, an audio-only digital media player was demonstrated by a company called SimpleDevices, which was awarded two patents covering this invention in 2006.
[6][7] Developed under the SimpleFi name by Motorola in late 2001, the design was based on a Cirrus Arm-7 processor and the wireless HomeRF networking standard which pre-dated 802.11b in the residential markets.
All these can play computer-based media files to a television without the need for a separate computer or network connection, and some can even be used as a conventional external hard drive.
[23] The most recent version of the AppleTV has lost the hard-drive that was included in its predecessor and fully depends on either streaming internet content, or another computer on the home network for media.
[25] This represents a new trend in the broadcast television industry, as the list of options for watching movies and TV over the Internet grows at a rapid pace.
Nearly 76.6 million U.S. households get broadband from leading cable and telephone companies,[26] although only a portion have sufficient speeds to support quality video steaming.
[27] Convergence devices for home entertainment will likely play a much larger role in the future of broadcast television, effectively shifting traditional revenue streams while providing consumers with more options.
Also, In-Stat predicts that 100 million homes in North America and western Europe will own digital media players and television sets that blend traditional programs with Internet content by 2016.
[33][34] The spread of these players has been attributed to their low cost and ease of use, with user experiences similar to legal subscription services such as Netflix.
[34][35][33] "Fully-loaded" set-top boxes have been subject to legal controversies, especially noting that their user experiences made them accessible to end-users who may not always realize that they are actually streaming pirated content.
In January 2017, an individual seller plead not guilty to charges of marketing and distributing devices that circumvent technological protection measures.
[36][37][38] In March 2017, the High Court of Justice ruled that BT Group, Sky plc, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media must block servers that had been used on such set-top boxes to illegally stream Premier League football games.
[39] Later in the month, Amazon UK banned the sale of "certain media players" that had been pre-loaded with software to illegally stream copyrighted content.
[40] On 26 April 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that the distribution of set-top boxes with access to unauthorized streams of copyrighted works violated the exclusive rights to communicate them to the public.
[34] In September 2017, a British seller of such boxes pled guilty to violations of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act for selling devices that can circumvent effective technical protection measures.
[33] However, on 1 June 2016, a consortium of Canadian media companies (BCE Inc., Rogers Communications, and Videotron) obtained a temporary federal injunction against five retailers of Android-based set-top boxes, alleging that their continued sale were causing "irreparable harm" to their television businesses, and that the devices' primary purpose were to facilitate copyright infringement.
The lawyer of one of the defendants argued that retailers should not be responsible for the actions of their users, as any type of computing device could theoretically be used for legal or illegal purposes.
[47] In June 2017, Televisa was granted a court order banning the sale of all Roku products in Mexico, as it was alleged that third-parties had been operating subscription television services for the devices that contain unlicensed content.
The letter cited malware risks, fraudulent use of FCC certification marks, and how their distribution through major online marketplaces may incorrectly suggest that they are legal and legitimate products.
