1.
Compact disc
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Compact disc is a digital optical disc data storage format released in 1982 and co-developed by Philips and Sony. The format was developed to store and play only sound recordings but was later adapted for storage of data. The first commercially available Audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan, standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres and can hold up to about 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or about 700 MiB of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres, they are used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio. At the time of the introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard drive. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much space as a thousand CDs. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs, by 2007,200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. In 2014, revenues from digital music services matched those from physical format sales for the first time. American inventor James T. Russell has been credited with inventing the first system to record information on an optical transparent foil that is lit from behind by a high-power halogen lamp. Russells patent application was first filed in 1966, and he was granted a patent in 1970, following litigation, Sony and Philips licensed Russells patents in the 1980s. The compact disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology, where a laser beam is used that enables the high information density required for high-quality digital audio signals. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s, although originally dismissed by Philips Research management as a trivial pursuit, the CD became the primary focus for Philips as the LaserDisc format struggled. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new audio disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the Red Book CD-DA standard was published in 1980, after their commercial release in 1982, compact discs and their players were extremely popular. Despite costing up to $1,000, over 400,000 CD players were sold in the United States between 1983 and 1984, by 1988 CD sales in the United States surpassed those of vinyl LPs, and by 1992 CD sales surpassed those of prerecorded music cassette tapes. The success of the disc has been credited to the cooperation between Philips and Sony, who came together to agree upon and develop compatible hardware. The unified design of the disc allowed consumers to purchase any disc or player from any company. In 1974, L. However, due to the performance of the analog format
2.
DVD
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DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
3.
Winamp
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Since version 2 it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community. Version 1 of Winamp was released in 1997, and grew popular with over 3 million downloads. Winamp 2.0 was released on September 8,1998, the 2. x versions were widely used and made Winamp one of the most downloaded Windows applications. By 2000, Winamp had over 25 million registered users, a poor reception to the 2002 rewrite, Winamp3, was followed by the release of Winamp 5 in 2003, and a later release of version 5.5 in 2007. Playback formats Winamp supports music playback using MP3, MIDI, MOD, MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2, AAC, M4A, FLAC, WAV, Winamp was one of the first widely used music players on Windows to support playback of Ogg Vorbis by default. It supports gapless playback for MP3 and AAC and ReplayGain for volume leveling across tracks, CD support includes playing and importing music from audio CDs, optionally with CD-Text, and burning music to CDs. The standard version limits maximum speed and datarate, the Pro version removes these limitations. Winamp supports playback of Windows Media Video and Nullsoft Streaming Video, for MPEG Video, AVI, and other unsupported video types, Winamp uses Microsofts DirectShow API for playback, allowing playback of most of the video formats supported by Windows Media Player. 5.1 Surround sound is supported where formats and decoders allow, Media Library At installation, Winamp scans the users system for media files to add to the Media Library database. It supports full Unicode filenames and Unicode metadata for media files, in the Media Library user interface pane, under Local Media, several selectors permit display of subsets of media files with greater detail. Adding album art and track tags Get Album Art permits retrieval of cover art, autotagging analyzes a tracks audio using the Gracenote service and retrieves the songs ID2 and ID3 metadata. Podcatcher Winamp can also be used as an RSS media feeds aggregator capable of displaying articles, downloading, SHOUTcast Wire provides a directory and RSS subscription system for podcasts. Media Monitor Winamp Media Monitor allows web-based browsing and bookmarking music blog websites, the Media Monitor is preloaded with music blog URLs. Winamp Remote Winamp Remote allows remote playback of unprotected media files on the users PC via the Internet, Remote adjusts bitrate based on available bandwidth, and can be controlled by web interface, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and mobile phones. Plug-ins In February 1998, Winamp was rewritten as an audio player with a plug-in architecture. This feature was received well by reviewers, development was early, diverse, and rapid,66 plugins were published by November 1998. The Winamp software development kit allows developers to create seven different types of plug-ins. Input. Output, sends data to devices or files
4.
Operating system
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An operating system is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require a system to function. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones, the dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 83. 3%. MacOS by Apple Inc. is in place, and the varieties of Linux is in third position. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors, other specialized classes of operating systems, such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. A single-tasking system can run one program at a time. Multi-tasking may be characterized in preemptive and co-operative types, in preemptive multitasking, the operating system slices the CPU time and dedicates a slot to each of the programs. Unix-like operating systems, e. g. Solaris, Linux, cooperative multitasking is achieved by relying on each process to provide time to the other processes in a defined manner. 16-bit versions of Microsoft Windows used cooperative multi-tasking, 32-bit versions of both Windows NT and Win9x, used preemptive multi-tasking. Single-user operating systems have no facilities to distinguish users, but may allow multiple programs to run in tandem, a distributed operating system manages a group of distinct computers and makes them appear to be a single computer. The development of networked computers that could be linked and communicate with each other gave rise to distributed computing, distributed computations are carried out on more than one machine. When computers in a work in cooperation, they form a distributed system. The technique is used both in virtualization and cloud computing management, and is common in large server warehouses, embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems. They are designed to operate on small machines like PDAs with less autonomy and they are able to operate with a limited number of resources. They are very compact and extremely efficient by design, Windows CE and Minix 3 are some examples of embedded operating systems. A real-time operating system is a system that guarantees to process events or data by a specific moment in time. A real-time operating system may be single- or multi-tasking, but when multitasking, early computers were built to perform a series of single tasks, like a calculator. Basic operating system features were developed in the 1950s, such as resident monitor functions that could run different programs in succession to speed up processing
5.
Windows Media Player
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Editions of Windows Media Player were also released for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X and Solaris but development of these has since been discontinued. Windows Media Player replaced an earlier application called Media Player, adding features beyond simple video or audio playback, Windows Media Player 11 is available for Windows XP and included in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The default file formats are Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio, and Advanced Systems Format, the player is also able to utilize a digital rights management service in the form of Windows Media DRM. Windows Media Player 12 is the most recent version of Windows Media Player. It was released on July 22,2009 along with Windows 7 and has not been available for previous versions of Windows nor has it been updated since for Windows 8, Windows 8.1. Unlike Windows 8, Windows RT does not run Windows Media Player, the first version of Windows Media Player appeared in 1991, when Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions was released. Originally called Media Player, this component was included with Multimedia PC-compatible machines and it was capable of playing. mmm animation files, and could be extended to support other formats. It used MCI to handle media files, being a component of Windows, Media Player shows the same version number as that of the version Windows with which it was included. Microsoft continually produced new programs to play media files, indeo 3.2 was added in a later release. Video for Windows was first available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, in 1995, Microsoft released ActiveMovie with DirectX Media SDK. ActiveMovie incorporates a new way of dealing with files. In 1996, ActiveMovie was renamed DirectShow, however, Media Player continued to come with Windows until Windows XP, in which it was officially renamed Windows Media Player v5.1. In 1999, Windows Media Players versioning broke away from that of Windows itself, Windows Media Player 7.0 and its successors also came in the same fashion, replacing each other but leaving Media Player and Windows Media Player 6.4 intact. Windows XP is the operating system to have three different versions of Windows Media Player side by side. All versions branded Windows Media Player support DirectShow codecs, Windows Media Player version 7 was a large revamp, with a new user interface, visualizations and increased functionality. Windows Vista, however, dropped older versions of Windows Media Player in favor of v11, Windows Media Player 12 was released with Windows 7. It included support for more media formats and added new features, with Windows 8, however, the player did not receive an upgrade. On April 16,2012, Microsoft announced that Windows Media Player would not be included in Windows RT, Windows Media Player supports playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, file markers and variable playback speed
6.
International standard
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International standards are standards developed by international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide, the most prominent organization is the International Organization for Standardization. International standards may be used either by application or by a process of modifying an international standard to suit local conditions. Technical barriers arise when different groups together, each with a large user base. Establishing international standards is one way of preventing or overcoming this problem, the implementation of standards in industry and commerce became highly important with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the need for high-precision machine tools and interchangeable parts. Henry Maudslay developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800, maudslays work, as well as the contributions of other engineers, accomplished a modest amount of industry standardization, some companies in-house standards spread a bit within their industries. Joseph Whitworths screw thread measurements were adopted as the first national standard by companies around the country in 1841 and it came to be known as the British Standard Whitworth, and was widely adopted in other countries. By the end of the 19th century differences in standards between companies were making trade increasingly difficult and strained, the Engineering Standards Committee was established in London in 1901 as the worlds first national standards body. After the First World War, similar national bodies were established in other countries, by the mid to late 19th century, efforts were being made to standardize electrical measurement. An important figure was R. E. B, Crompton, who became concerned by the large range of different standards and systems used by electrical engineering companies and scientists in the early 20th century. Many companies had entered the market in the 1890s and all chose their own settings for voltage, frequency, current, adjacent buildings would have totally incompatible electrical systems simply because they had been fitted out by different companies. Crompton could see the lack of efficiency in this system and began to consider proposals for a standard for electric engineering. In 1904, Crompton represented Britain at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis as part of a delegation by the Institute of Electrical Engineers. He presented a paper on standardisation, which was so well received that he was asked to look into the formation of a commission to oversee the process. By 1906 his work was complete and he drew up a permanent constitution for the first international standards organization, the body held its first meeting that year in London, with representatives from 14 countries. In honour of his contribution to electrical standardisation, Lord Kelvin was elected as the bodys first President, the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations was founded in 1926 with a broader remit to enhance international cooperation for all technical standards and specifications. The body was suspended in 1942 during World War II, after the war, ISA was approached by the recently formed United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee with a proposal to form a new global standards body. List of international common standards List of technical standard organisations Global Frameworks and standards organized along function lines, accessed 2014 ^ Cordova
