The Evolution of the Modern Digital Media Player

“What is the future Information technology? What comes after everybody is connected? In my opinion, the next big step is entertainment”

2001, Linus Torvalds in Just for fun.

Key Milestones in the evolution of Digital Media Players

^{2001
The open source Xvid MPEG-4 video format is
released and is
today the choice for storing DVD in a digital format.

2002
KiSS

Technology, introduced its DP500, the first DVD player to offer an
Ethernet connection and DivX/Xvid support.
.
The MKV (Matroska)
Multimedia Container is relased and becomes the popular choice for
digitally storing H.264 HD movies such as Blu-Ray

2004
The

FreeKISS software that connects the players to the home network and
allow streaming of movies to the player is released

2005
Cisco

buys KiSS Technology the purchase gave Cisco access to the
company's technology, which includes DVD players and recorders
that connect to the Internet.

2006
Intel Viiv
Is launched at CES

2007
Apple into's the AppleTV
Digital Media Player

2008

Syabas affiliate
Popcorn launches the Popcorn 100 and the A-110

2009

Western

Digital Introduces the WD TV HD media player for less than $100

Seagates

introduces the Freeagent Hometheater

Syabas introduces the
C-200 DMP with support for blu-ray and blu-ray ISO files

Realtek
introduces their Soc chipset that is used in many modern DMP's.

Intel

Launches the CE4100 Atom based SoC for Connected TV's

Asus,
Netgear, Xtreamer, Cinematube, ACRyan all launch Realtek based digital
media players.

Western Digital launch Sigma smp 8655 Powered WD
TV Liver player with built in Youtube and support for DTS-HD audio.}

²⁰¹⁰

^{First
ARM Based Media Players
is announced}

^{Asus

HD2 and Asus Eeemedia EM0501 are the first media players with a built
web browser}

WD TV Live Plus: first media player with built in support for Netflix

Boxee Box by D-Link is delayed till November

Navigation

^{Why

Consumers want Digital Media Players}

Connected TV
^Software
^{Video

Technology}
^{Sound

Technology}
^{Video

Streaming and Network Protocols}

^{Sigma

Designs}
^{Intel

Viiv}
^{Realtek

Semiconductors}

^{Convergence

in general}
^{Complementors

to the media players}
^{Standards

for the Digital Home}

^{Digital Media Players}

In the most basic of terms, a Media Player is a box you connect to your TV and Hi-Fi to play digital audio and video files.

^{The Digital Media Players have disintegrated the functions of video playing, from the pc into an embedded consumer devices, much like Squeezebox and Ipod did it for mp3 music, which beforehand were played on the computer.
Intel CE4100 will be embedded into TV’s but it is Sigma Designs and Realtek with their Soc’s and Syabas middleware that have lead the disintegration into consumer DMPs.}

^{The formation of a new product and market.}

^{From the kiss DP500 to the Popcorn C-200}

^{The first company that launched an} ^{consumer living room device, that integrated the best from the PC and the the best from the consumer electronics products, was the small start-up firm Kiss Technology. with their DP500 player.}

^{The player integrated new capabilities of playing digital media files on a small media player. The Danish company called K.I.S.S. Technology was the pioneer in this new consumer product category. They launched the DP500 the media player in the fall of 2002, which were able to play the popular online divx video format in a regular Physical DVD player. Later in 2003 they introduced the DP500 the first networked DVD player, that enabled the user to connect the Player to a PC, were the movie files were stored..}

^{Click here for a
complete line up of the Kiss products}

^{The
Evolution of the Software for controlling digital media players}

^{Traditionally
when a consumer wanted to watch a movie, he or she went to the local
movie rental store and rented a DVD or blu-ray disc. Or the use of Video
on demand form their local cable TV Company was also method of delivery}

^{However
within the last 10 years some consumers have opted to use the internet
as their channel for movies and TV shows.}

^{At first is was the illegal download over peer to peer
networks where users shared the video that had ripped form a DVD disc.
The video formats used in these illegal copies is called, Xvid for SD
movies and X.264 in the MKV container for HD
movies}

^{These user have in many years used their PC for downloading
and watching movies. However this solution have not been
optimal since, the consumes would want to see the movie on large TV and
not on a small computer screen. Therefore many early adopters’
experimented in hooking up their PC to the TV to watch the movies in the
living room. This created some problems. A problem was
of interface control, it is not easy to navigate a computer with a mouse
and keyboard from when you sit in your living room couch, you do not
want to go to the pc all the time to use keyboard or mouse.}

^{For a more detailed discussion and
history of software go to the software page}

Usage model example of the modern Digital Media Player

^Software

Current offerings of Media Players

^{Media Processors}

^{According
to Keith Jack a Media processor is able to run a variety of programs,
and offers a variety of audio/video inputs and outputs, ways to connect
to other things (such as memory, hard drives, tuners, Ethernet, etc.).
For a complete overview, visit KJ Blog.}

^{Media
Processors are found in Media players and handle the OS and the playback
and decoding of media files.}Chipset architecture

^{MIPS
Technologies are today dominating the Media player field, mainly because
Sigma Designs relies on MIPS for thier Key Media Processors. Sigma and Realtek applies a RISC CPU
design from MIPS technologies, where Intel relies on their x86
structure.

Nvidia's Tegra2 is the first ARM Based Chip design to
be seen in the Media Player business coming out on the new Boxee Box.
Also Asus have annocuned an Media Player runing on a Cortex11 ARM chip
by Samsung and a SGX540 GPU by Imagination.

The MIPS chip architecture have
recently pushed ahead and have ported the Android OS for its chip
design. Intel is keen to enter the embedded market and is ferociously
luring programmers and producers to choose their embedded SoC platform
CE 4100. They have had good luck so far with the CE producers such as
Samsung, Sony and Toshiba by CE4100 SoC into Flatscreen TV's. They are
also running large adds and E-events on their embedded design structure
for consumer electronics .}

^{MIPS is often called a more elegant
architecture than x86, because of its easier design structure and low
watt requirements, not to mention low price. It also allows for easier
integration of different chips and technologies to be programmed onto
one System on a Chip boards.}

For a more detailed view of Arm vs. MIPS see Forbes.com
For a x86 chip design vs RISC (ARM & MIPS) see this lecture

^{^{Semiconductors firms producing Media Processors}
^{Intel, Sigma and Realtek.}
Intel Embeeded CE Media Processors

^{Intel Launched their Viiv approach to he home theater pc back 2005, and ended it in 2009 where they introduced the SoC system called CE 2100, CE 3100 CE4100 for a deeper insight into the Viiv, go to the Viiv page}
^{Intel Viiv}

^{Sigma Designs Media Processors

The leading provider of Semiconductors for the DMP's Providing Media Processor

Sigma Designs}}

^{[1] (The economist, the digital home sept 21 2005)}

^{[2] (The war for the digital home, BusinesWeek jan 23 2006)}

^{[3] (The war for the digital home, BusinesWeek jan 23 2006)}

^{[4] (The economist, the digital home sept 21 2005)}

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