A digital audio player (DAP) is a device that stores, organizes and plays audio files. It is more commonly referred to as an MP3 player because of the MP3 format's ubiquity, but DAPs often play many additional file formats. Some formats are proprietary, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA), and to a degree, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and MP3. Some of these formats also may incorporate restrictive DRM technology, such as Janus and FairPlay, which are often part of certain paid download sites. Other formats are completely patent-free or otherwise open, such as Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Speex (all part of the Ogg open multimedia project), and Module file formats. There are three main types of digital audio players:

• Flash-based Players - These are solid state devices that hold digital audio files on internal or external media, such as memory cards. Due to technological limitations, these are relatively low-storage devices, commercially ranging from 128MB to 16GB, such as the second generation iPod nano, the SanDisk Sansa series of players, and the iriver clix, which can often be extended with additional memory. As they are solid state and do not have moving parts, they are very resilient. In effect, they do not suffer limitations that owners of Hard Drive-based players face, such as fears of dropping their player or fragmentation. Such players are commonly integrated into USB keydrives.
• Hard Drive-based Players or Digital Jukeboxes - Devices that read digital audio files from a hard drive. These players have higher capacities, ranging from 1.5GB to 160GB, depending on the hard drive technology. At typical encoding rates, this means that thousands of songs — perhaps an entire music collection — can be stored on one player. Because of the storage capacity, devices that also display video and pictures are often hard-drive based.
• MP3 CD Players - Devices that can play audio files from a CD-ROM in addition to audio CDs.

History

The first digital audio player in the world was created by one of America’s most acclaimed inventors, Elwood “Woody” Norris in 1993. Manufactured by e.Digital Corporation (then called Comp General) in early 1994 the FlashBack included removable flash memory and the first flash file system.

The precursors to DAPs were portable CD players and MiniDisc players. Neither of these types is generally called a "digital audio player", even though they both use digital storage methods. Non-mechanical DAPs were introduced following the popularity of the precursors.

The second DAP (and the first mass market player) was the Rio PMP300 from Diamond Multimedia, introduced in September 1998. The Rio was a big success during the Christmas 1998 season as sales significantly exceeded expectations, spurring interest and investment in digital music. The Recording Industry Association of America soon filed a lawsuit alleging that the device abetted illegal copying of music, but Diamond won a legal victory on the shoulders of Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios and digital audio players were ruled legal devices.

Other early DAPs includes Sensory Science's Rave MP2300, the I-Jam IJ-100, and the Creative Labs Nomad. These portables were small and light, but only held enough memory to hold around 7 to 20 songs at normal 128 kbit/s compression rates. They also used slower parallel port connections to transfer files from PC to player, necessary as most PCs then used the Windows 95 and NT operating systems, which did not support the then newer USB connections well enough to be considered for use. When in the year 2000 USB became more common, most players adopted the USB standard, with a few isolated models supporting the FireWire standard.

By the end of 1999, Compaq made a significant improvement in DAPs' space limitations by using a laptop hard drive for song storage rather than low-capacity flash memory. The Personal Jukebox (PJB-100), manufactured under license by HanGo Electronics, had 4.8GB of storage space, which held about 1200 songs (or 100 CDs, hence the name PJB-100), and was the beginning of what would be called the jukebox segment of digital audio players. This segment eventually became the dominant type of DAP.

Also, at the end of 1999, the first in-dash digital audio player appeared. The Empeg Car (renamed the Rio Car after it was acquired by SonicBLUE and added to its Rio line of MP3 products) offered players in several capacities ranging from 5GB to 28GB. The unit didn't catch on as SonicBLUE had hoped, however, and was discontinued in the autumn of 2001.

In 2000, iriver released their first digital audio device.

The arrival of Apple Computer's iPod in 2001, combined with the opening of the iTunes Store in 2003 that created the legal music download business, greatly expanded the market.

In 2003, the term "Digital Audio Player" and the acronym "DAP" were first popularized as the name and focus of the website DAPreview.net. The term and the acronym were subsequently adopted by news editors at Engadget.com, one of the most popular technology-related blogs, and they have since become a common way of referencing these devices among the gadget-savvy. [citation needed]

In 2004, Microsoft introduced their Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology under the PlaysForSure brand. This technology allows consumers to rent music from subscription music services such as Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music Unlimited and transfer it to their compatible digital audio players. Microsoft did not use PlaysForSure when it released its own Zune music player because of limitations over sharing music between devices [1] and in 2007 announced a new DRM technology to cover more file types than music and video.

In 2006, MSI developed and showcased the first solar powered player, the MSI MEGA 540, at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.[2]

[edit] Usage/Usability

As digital audio players have spread, new uses have been found for them. This includes podcasting, in which radio-like programs, or even TV-like video feeds, are automatically downloaded into the device to be played at the owner's convenience.

[edit] Audio acquisition

All commercially available digital audio players can play music that has been ripped from Compact Discs via computer. In addition to ripped CD tracks, many digital audio players can accept downloaded music from online music stores. However, such stores often use proprietary formats and DRM, which means that the tracks can only be played on suitably licensed and restricted devices. For example, songs you purchase from iTunes might not work on any digital audio player other than an iPod.

Another way of getting audio files is to rip the songs from radio broadcasts. Many players have the ability to record songs played on the built-in FM tuner. Recently, a Swedish company called PopCatcher has developed a technology to save songs from Internet radio and can distinguish between songs, DJ talks, and commercials for convenience. .

[edit] Audio formats

Besides MP3, the main formats in use are WMA/PlaysForSure from Microsoft, AAC (the DRM version is from Apple) and ATRAC from Sony, all of which are mutually incompatible.

For those who want an open-source option, there is the Ogg audio format, the format used by Wikimedia Commons. Ogg is the container format for Vorbis, Theora, Speex, FLAC, and many others.

A huge amount of freely downloadable music is available in MOD format from sites such as The MOD Archive[1]. Most MOD files are composed by individuals who allow them to be freely distributed, unlike music by most commercial artists. While today's digital audio players generally do not support MOD files directly, progress is being made on that front with projects such as the TRAXMOD digital audio player. Apple iPod owners willing to run Linux on their iPods may also play MOD files through the MikModule program. For the time being, MOD files can be manually converted into a supported audio format with some music converter and/or player software. It should be noted that due to differences in the file formats, the resulting file will almost inevitably be larger and of slightly lower quality.

[edit] Applications of usage

MP3 players have had other media-playing devices supplanted for certain applications. Since some people have downloaded music from the Internet that radio never plays, MP3 players have had the ability to be optimized to comply with peoples' music tastes. One drawback of that for some people is that, people often like to be surprised by radio songs that they never heard before; however the radio has been rendered redundant by other sources of entertainment that play those same songs.

Some applications where "drawbacks" are present include the usage of stereo systems utilized by audiophiles who prefer higher fidelity.

Other applications implemented with MP3 players include devices that convert sound waves to infra-red strobe which can cause a traffic light to turn green; which in this case legal problems are present.[citation needed]

Most modern digital audio players are technically portable media players, as they support video playback.

[edit] Controversy

In early 2006, the Consumer Council of Norway brought a case against Apple alleging that the iTunes software infringed on Norway's Marketing Control Act, by locking out competing media players from playing music bought through the iTunes Store and disclaiming liability for any damage done to consumers devices by iTunes Store purchases. By August 2006, Apple had indicated they would work towards resolving the second issue.[3]

In March 2006, the France National Assembly passed the DADVSI bill which was intended to reform French copyright law. One goal of the bill was to criminalise the circumvention of Digital Rights Management (DRM) while at the same time stop DRM from infringing on consumer's "legitimate uses".[4] While the initial drafts would have required companies like Apple and Microsoft to open up their DRM technologies for free to competitors, the French Senate amended the bill to establish a regulatory authority that would consider requests to open DRM technologies. The amendments also allow copyright holders to refuse interoperability requests where lack of interoperability was an intended goal.[5]

Many digital audio player manufacturing companies located in China have been making clones, or similar digital audio players of major brands e.g iPods without licenses or agreements. Despite the objections and lawsuits against these Chinese companies, the Chinese government is not required to take any action to prosecute their manufacturers