A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to watch the DVD content, which could be a movie, a recorded TV show, or other content.
The interior of a DVD player
A portable DVD player
Output connectors of a DVD player (2016): The single HDMI connector on the left is employed to replace the older connection options for audio and video signals, which require at least two, depending on the use case even up to five, individual cable connections with RCA connectors (see middle section, colored). An exception was the technically outdated SCART type A/V connector most right.
The DVD is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind of digital data and has been widely used to store video programs, software and other computer files. DVDs offer significantly higher storage capacity than compact discs (CD) while having the same dimensions. A standard single-layer DVD can store up to 4.7 GB of data, a dual-layer DVD up to 8.5 GB. Variants can store up to a maximum of 17.08 GB.
The data side of a DVD manufactured by Sony DADC
Kees Schouhamer Immink received a personal technical Emmy award for his contributions to DVD and Blu-ray disc.
PlayStation 2, the first video game console to run DVDs
A DVD-ROM drive for a PC
