Home Media Player

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Sony MHC-WZ8D: Casette, Audio CD, VCD, SVCD and DVD home media supported high-end speaker set system

Shouldn't be confused with media playback capable mobile devices, consoles and handhelds, portable media players, smart TVs, DVRs, smart TV boxes/digital media players/media boxes, smart blu-ray players, android consoles and set-top box.

Home media player is a device for playback (and some of them features recording, copying, delivery) of various types of entertainment and information in the home. Most popular use case scenario for these kinds of devices is playing home video content; the term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as VCD, DVD and Blu-ray. In a different usage, "home video" refers to amateur video recordings, also known as home movie.

Such device examples other than VHS, VCD or DVD players are VCRs, LaserDisc players and multiplex or converged devices like VCR/DVD combo, TV/VCR combo, VCR/Blu-ray combo and home media supported speaker set systems, etc.

Contents

List of Audio CD, VCD, DVD and Blu-ray Players

Games

 
Playing "DreamWorks Movie Trivia DVD Game" interactive game with MPC-HC media player software.

Usually there are QTE-based FMV game/interactive movie or user created compilation discs released for home media players; e.g. NES bootleg game disc called Super Game VCD 300 which is only compatible with home media players using "SunPlus" chipsets. Unfortunately there are no emulators for these kinds of devices and chipsets other than Nuon technology emulators.

On the other hand lots of QTE-based FMV game/interactive movie released for various multimedia capable devices too, such as;

Emulators

As cited above there is no emulator for any of the home media player or it's chipsets due to lack of interest and media player software solutions.

Other than JPCSP for UMD and Amiga CD32 emulators for VCD; there are no emulators that supports media playback emulation for home consoles, handhelds or hybrid home consoles designed to be a "Interactive Multimedia" CD players;

However there are Arcade LaserDisc emulators for arcade games that uses pre-recorded video (either live-action or animation) played from a LaserDisc.

 
DVD menu with MPC-HC media player

Media player software

Media player software is basically a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files or home media content from ripping process, optical drive, optical disc image, raw disc image or network. Some of these software even compatible with interactive media content such as menu support and FMV/interactive movie games.

Comparison of media player software
  • VCD/White book standard disc playback supported by most of the media player software when you are using the physical disc. Also you can use compatible virtual disc image mount software with media player software->open disc option. Another option is directly launching .DAT file with media player software. Lastly if you have a VCD packaged inside a CD-image, VLC media player can play this directly without you having to mount it or extract it such as; CDRWIN's BIN/CUE format, cdrdao's TOC format, and a limited set of Nero (NRG) formats.[1]. But due to lack of support for playback control (PBC) with VCD2.0 or onwards[2]; most of the media player software do not support VCD menus. For a complete VCD experience which includes menu selections, hot spots and playback control (PBC)[3][4][5][6], use xine.[7]
  • SVCD and CVD playback using .mpg or .bin files is supported with VLC and most of the other media player software or if you have a SVCD packaged inside a CD-image, in some cases VLC media player can play this directly without you having to mount it or extract it such as; CDRWIN's BIN/CUE format, cdrdao's TOC format, and a limited set of Nero (NRG) formats.[1], though as cited above; handling still frames (often used in menus) and switching between different video formats is often problematic or not supported. For a complete SVCD support which includes menu selections, hot spots and playback control, use xine.[7][8]
  • CD-i Digital Video playback is not possible; you cannot rip your disc or use .DAT files (or launch CD-image directly) due to Green Book standard for CD-i discs; making it incompatible with the Video CD format and ISO-9660 file system which causing unreadable discs or incompatibility with media player software, though White Book standard CD-i movie discs released later, which shouldn't be confused with CD-i Digital Video discs[9]. Either way, do not expect menu support; which is possible with Video-CD 1.1 format exclusive to CD-i players (VCDs with only version 2.0 or onwards supports this as cited above, e.g VCD players with Return button)[4], you have to wait for an CD-i emulator that fully implements "DVC" or use compatible hardware for playing Green Book standard CD-i Digital Videos and menus.
  • Photo CD playback is possible with VLC or MPC-HC if you are using physical disc or compatible virtual disc image mount software with media player software->open disc option. Another option is using something like XnView for .PCD files.
  • Audio CD playback is possible; if you have a CD-DA/Audio CD packaged inside a CD-image, in some cases VLC media player can play this directly without you having to mount it or extract it such as; CDRWIN's BIN/CUE format, cdrdao's TOC format, and a limited set of Nero (NRG) formats.[1] otherwise you need to insert the physical disc to play it[10]. Another option for this using something like "Audacity" software to import the .BIN files (File - Import - Raw Data... - Signed 16-bits PCM, 2 channel stereo, 44100 Hz) and, then, export as .WAV.[11]
  • DVD playback and menus supported by various media player software like VLC and MPC-HC, however other ones like mpv and libretro-mpv do not support DVD menus[12], so there is no support for EmuVR either. A large number of commercial DVDs are encrypted which uses a range of encryption and copy protection techniques like RC, RCE, APS, CSS, UOPs and ARccOS; using plugins like libdvdcss[13], libdvdread and libdvdnav for VLC may help with playing these encrypted discs. Another option is decrypting and properly ripping these discs using DVD decrypter software.
Notes;
  • VLC 4.0 nightly builds has issues with DVD activation response currently, use 3.0 nightly builds for workaround. However there is a cursor missing problem for navigation if you are using VLC, unfortunately there is no solution for this problem at the moment other than using MPC-HC or other DVD menu compatible media player software.
  • VLC always skips intro section with default settings; for preventing this go to Tools -> Preferences -> Show settings: ALL and then Input codecs -> Access modules -> DVD with menus : Untick the option "Start directly in menu".
  • If you are using MPC-HC for DVDs and using virtual image instead of inserting physical disc, make sure mount that virtual image to your file system before using it, otherwise menu navigate support will usually doesn't work properly. You can use this simple batch script for handling all of this automatically but make sure edit batch script for path and media player software location first. Keep in mind that you do NOT need to mount your virtual image; you can directly play with menu support if you are using VLC.
  • Make sure edit your hotkeys for menu navigation before using it however most of the time you can use your mouse cursor to navigate so you don't need to do this. For MPC-HC; go to Options>Player>Keys>change each one of "DVD ... ..." command hotkey.

External Links

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