The first MP3-player, in the modern sense of the word, was released to the market in 1996 and immediately won the audience award at the annual Internet Conference. The next one was the South Korean player MPMan, submitted in mid-1998 with 32 MB of available memory. That same year, Compaq developed the first player on the hard drive with about 5 GB of memory. In 2001 Apple introduced the first generation Ipod. A year later, Apple released the second generation IPod, compatible with Windows computers. This has become a market leader. Manufacturer Archos released the first type portable media player with the ability not only to play the songs but also to view photos and video. At the same time, MP3-players have been installed in mobile phones. This idea has spread around the world and by 2005 all the major phone manufacturers had released their music phones. This was one of the main reasons for developing iPhone. In general, MP3-player device consists of file storage, embedded processor and a microchip to convert compressed audio file from an analog audio signal. Rechargeable batteries, some of which cannot be replaced by the user, power most types of music players. Many of them have a 3.5mm jack. You can listen to music with headphones or external speakers. Some types of devices have built-in speakers, although they are usually very poor quality. Nearly all-digital music players have any screen, although there are exceptions, like Ipod Shuffle. There is also a set of controls with which the user can browse a library of music contained on the device, select a song and play it. The display can be a simple monochrome LCD like those found on calculators or a large full-color display capable of displaying photos and video. Files stored on the player as a rule out of sync when you connect to a PC, typically via USB. Some of the best types of players allow to synchronize wirelessly, e.g. via Wi-Fi or Blue tooth. Most audio formats compress the data loss to as little as possible on the size of the files with acceptable quality. There is a tradeoff between file size and sound quality of compressed files. Most file formats such as MP3, support from 32 (worst) to 320 (best) kilobits per second. Number of formats that are supported by the player depends on its firmware. MP3 is the dominant format and is supported almost everywhere. Some types of player are supporting AAC and WMA. Less widespread support for newer formats, in particular do not require the manufacturers and distributors of music to make payment, such as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC.
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