Misplaced Pages

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126-549: In addition to being a media player, the app can rip audio file from compact discs , burn Audio CDs or MP3 CDs , synchronize content with a digital audio player or mobile devices, and stream media over the local network. Originally, it could connect to a number of online music stores , allowing its users to purchase digital music. The default file formats are Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Advanced Systems Format (ASF), and its own XML based playlist format called Windows Playlist ( WPL ). The player

252-583: A PPTP server for VPN functionality) and Multi-Protocol Routing service. There are new administrative wizards and a lite version of the Network Monitor utility shipped with System Management Server . The Enterprise edition introduced Microsoft Cluster Server . One significant difference from previous versions of Windows NT is that the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is moved into kernel mode rather than being in user mode in

378-687: A music streaming service to a media player . Other changes include the album cover view being in fullscreen, and a refresh to the mini player. Accessibility has also been optimized, with some improved keyboard shortcuts and hotkey support for keyboard users and with other assistive technologies. Windows Media Player supports playback of audio, video and pictures, along with fast forward, reverse, file markers (if present) and variable playback speed (seek & time compression/dilation introduced in WMP 9 Series). It supports local playback, streaming playback with multicast streams and progressive downloads. Items in

504-573: A 10-band graphic equalizer with presets and SRS WOW audio post-processing system. Windows Media Player can also have attached audio and video DSP plug-ins which process the output audio or video data. Video Smoothing was introduced in WMP 9 Series ( Windows XP and later only) which upscales frame-rate by interpolating added frames, in effect giving a smoother playback on low-framerate videos. The player supports subtitles and closed-captioning for local media, video on demand streaming or live streaming scenarios. Typically Windows Media captions support

630-486: A backup copy of a personally owned DVD on that individual's computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies." This case made clear that manufacturing and distribution of circumvention tools was illegal, but use of those tools for non-infringing purposes, including fair use purposes, was not. The Library of Congress periodically issues rulings to exempt certain classes of works from

756-580: A built-in component of Windows 2000 , Windows Me , and Windows XP with an mplayer2.exe stub allowing to use this built-in instead of newer versions. 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 only operating system to have three different versions of Windows Media Player (v5.1, v6.4, and v8) side by side. All versions branded Windows Media Player (instead of simply Media Player) support DirectShow codecs. Windows Media Player version 7

882-536: A burn list onto multiple discs in case the content does not fit on one disc. Windows Media Player allows the user to connect, share and sync data with portable handheld devices and game consoles since version 7. Media can be optionally transcoded to a format better suited for the target device, automatically, when synchronizing. When deleting playlists from devices, Windows Media Player can automatically remove their contents. Devices can be formatted using Windows Media Player 9 Series and later. Version 10 and later support

1008-416: A compact disc to a file or other output. Some all-in-one ripping programs can simplify the entire process by ripping and burning the audio to disc in one step, possibly re-encoding the audio on-the-fly in the process. For example, audio CDs contain 16-bit, 44.1 kHz LPCM -encoded audio samples interleaved with secondary data streams and synchronization and error correction info. The ripping software tells

1134-447: A copy of any legally purchased music may be made by its owner, as long as it is not distributed to others and its use remains personal. In Australia, this was extended in 2006 to also include photographs and films. Recording industry representatives have made conflicting statements about ripping. Executives claimed (in the context of Atlantic v. Howell ) that ripping may be regarded as copyright infringement. In oral arguments before

1260-478: A file. When creating a copy, nothing looks into the transferred file, nor checks if there is any encryption or not, and raw copy is also not aware of any file format. One can copy a DVD byte by byte via programs like the Linux dd command onto a hard disk, and play the resulting ISO file just as one would play the original DVD. To rip contents is also different from grabbing an analog signal and re-encoding it, as it

1386-409: A limited private copying exception which corresponds to what consumers are already doing. As rights holders are well aware of consumers’ behaviour in this respect, our view is that the benefit of being able to do this is already factored into the price that rights holders are charging. A limited private copying exception which corresponds to the expectations of buyers and sellers of copyright content, and

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1512-521: A music store switches the Info Center view, radio and other online features to use services from that store. Purchased music from a particular store appears in a separate library node under the respective category. Previously, Microsoft had released Windows Media Connect for Windows XP to stream media content with its built-in UPnP media server. With version 11 of Windows Media Player, Media Sharing

1638-581: A new way of dealing with media files, and adds support for streaming media (which the original Media Player could not handle). 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. ("v5.1" is the version number of Windows XP). In 1999, Windows Media Player's versioning broke away from that of Windows itself. Windows Media Player 6.4 came as an out-of-band update for Windows 95 - 98 and Windows NT 4.0 that co-existed with Media Player and became

1764-492: A piece of music or video from one device to another" was not "fit for the digital age". The review recommended, among other things, that the government consider adopting the EU Copyright Directive 's recommendation that member states enact an exception for private, noncommercial copying so long as the rights holders receive "fair compensation." Other EU member states chose to implement the exception paired with

1890-506: A playlist can be skipped over temporarily at playback time without removing them from the playlist. Full keyboard-based operation is possible in the player. Windows Media Player supports full media management, via the integrated media library introduced first in version 7, which offers cataloguing and searching of media and viewing media metadata. Media can be arranged according to album, artist, genre, date et al. Windows Media Player 9 Series introduced Quick Access Panel to browse and navigate

2016-549: A shell player powertoy for Windows Media Player 8 in Windows XP and integrated later into WMP 9 Series. Mini-mode has been removed in Windows Media Player 12 in favor of controls in the taskbar's interactive thumbnail preview which lacks volume control, a progress bar and information displayed whenever a new song is played. Despite this, however, Mini-mode can be restored in Windows Media Player 12 by registering

2142-605: A specific category or folder. The pile appears larger as the category contains more albums. The List pane includes an option to prompt the user to remove items skipped in a playlist upon save or skip them only during playback. While playing music, Windows Media Player can show visualizations . The current three visualizations are Alchemy , which was first introduced in version 9, Bars and Waves , which has been used since version 7, and Battery , introduced version 8. Versions 7 and 8 included with Me and XP respectively includes an additional visualization called "Musical Colors", which

2268-496: A tax on music purchases or widely varying levies on copying equipment and blank media. However, the Review reasoned that no such collections are necessary when implementing a copyright exception for format-shifting: The UK has a thriving market for personal media devices which rely on private copying. We see no economic argument for adding an extra charge to these devices in order to authorise reasonable private acts which are part of

2394-539: A user opened a specially crafted media file". Such a file would allow the attacker to "then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights", if the account on which the file was played had administrator privileges. The problem was addressed in a critical update issued on September 8, 2009. Microsoft has also released versions of Windows Media Player for other platforms including Windows Mobile , classic Mac OS , Mac OS X , Palm-size PC , Handheld PC , and Solaris . Of these, only

2520-738: Is Internet Explorer 6 with SP1 , which was released on September 9, 2002. Windows NT 4.0 was succeeded by Windows 2000 , which also included the Windows Desktop Update and Internet Explorer 5 by default. It also could be directly upgraded to Windows XP Professional on IA-32 -based systems only. An independent project named Windows Update Restored aims to restore the Windows Update websites for older versions of Windows, including Windows NT 4.0. Windows NT 4.0 received six service packs during its lifecycle, as well as numerous service rollup packages and option packs. Only

2646-468: Is 4 GB, which is the maximum possible for a 32-bit operating system that does not support PAE. By comparison, Windows 95 fails to boot on computers with more than approximately 480 MB of memory. Like previous versions of NT, version 4.0 can run on multiple processor architectures. Windows 95, however, can only run on x86. Windows NT 4.0 Server was included in versions 4.0 and 4.5 of BackOffice Small Business Server suite. An Option Pack

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2772-423: Is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward." Nevertheless, in lawsuits against individuals accused of copyright infringement for making files available via file-sharing networks, RIAA lawyers and PR officials have characterized CD ripping as "illegal" and "stealing". When asked directly about the issue, RIAA president Cary Sherman asserted that the lawyers misspoke, and that

2898-535: Is also able to utilize a digital rights management service in the form of Windows Media DRM . Windows Media Player is a unique component, in that since 1999, each version of Windows came with two or more versions of it side-by-side. For example, Media Player versions 5.1, 6.4, and 8 were all included in Windows XP . Each versions of Windows may bundle several other media playback apps, namely ActiveMovie Control , CD Player , DVD Player , Windows Media Center , and Microsoft Movies & TV . Windows Media Player 11

3024-515: Is also visible from the Library view. AutoPlay handlers in Windows expose various Windows Media Player tasks. Up to version 11, it featured a taskbar-mounted Mini-mode in which the most common media control buttons are presented as a toolbar on the Windows taskbar . Flyout windows can display media information, the active visualization or the video being played back. Mini-mode was introduced as

3150-414: Is not available as a download from Microsoft, distribution is done solely through OEM partners, and is typically included on devices based on Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile 6 includes a copy of Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, but with a similar (but not quite identical) theme as Windows Media Player 11. Version 9 was the final version of Windows Media Player to be released for Mac OS X before development

3276-404: Is not explicitly allowed or forbidden. Existing copyright statutes may apply to specific acts of personal copying, as determined in cases in the civil or criminal court systems, building up a body of case law . Consumer copyright infringement cases in this area, to date, have only focused on issues related to consumer rights and the applicability of the law to the sharing of ripped files, not to

3402-676: Is not officially supported by Windows NT 4.0. The difference between the NT family and 9x family would remain until the release of Windows XP in 2001. At that time, the APIs — such as OpenGL and DirectX — had matured sufficiently to be more efficient to write for common PC hardware, and the hardware itself had become powerful enough to handle the API processing overhead. The maximum amount of supported physical random-access memory (RAM) in Windows NT 4.0

3528-431: Is not present in out-of-band releases of version 7 as well as version 9 onwards, but is retained if Windows Media Player was upgraded from version 7 or 8. Version 11 and above refrains from having the former "Ambience," "Particle," "Plenoptic," and "Spikes" visualizations from versions 7 to 10. The reason for their removal was that the visualizations do not support full screen controls (either the visualization gets shifted to

3654-510: Is present. Audio can be ripped using error correction and ripped audio can be protected with Windows Media DRM . Ripping to MP3 is supported only in Windows Media Player 8 for Windows XP and later if a compatible MP3 encoder is installed. Windows Media Player 10 included the Fraunhofer MP3 Professional encoder. Information on CDs such as album name, artist and track listings can optionally be automatically downloaded from

3780-604: Is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51 , and was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail in August 24, 1996, with the Server versions released to retail in September 1996. Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptively multitasked , 32-bit operating system that is designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was Microsoft's primary business-oriented operating system until

3906-422: Is the extraction of digital content from a container, such as a CD, onto a new digital location. Originally, the term meant to rip music from Commodore 64 games. Later, the term was applied to ripping WAV or MP3 files from digital audio CDs , and after that to the extraction of contents from any storage media , including DVD and Blu-ray discs, as well as the extraction of video game sprites . Despite

Windows Media Player - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-466: Is the highest quality down-conversion bit-rate that can be manually selected when the Sync function's down-conversion function is turned on. Lower bit-rates can also be selected. For portable devices that can handle high bit-rate files, the best quality files are obtained by leaving the down-conversion process switched off (unchecked) for that specific device. In Windows Media Player Version 11, switching off

4158-495: Is the last out-of-band version of Media Player. It was made available for Windows XP and is included in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 . Version 12 was released in 2009 along with Windows 7 and has not been made available for previous versions of Windows nor has it been updated ever since. Windows 8 bundled Windows Media Player 12 along two other media player apps, namely Xbox Video and Xbox Music . The latter

4284-596: Is therefore already priced into the purchase, will by definition not entail a loss for right holders. In August 2011, the government broadly accepted the recommendations of the Hargreaves Review. At the end of 2012, the government published "Modernising Copyright", a document outlining specific changes the government intends to make, including the Hargreaves-recommended exception for private, noncommercial copying. Following each milestone in

4410-476: Is turned on) to be remotely controlled by Digital Media Controller devices which stream media (Digital Media Renderer role). Similarly, the Play To feature once enabled for remote PCs, by turning on remote control of the player, allows compliant devices and computers to be discovered and controlled remotely from a computer running Windows Media Player 12 (Digital Media Controller role). If the devices do not support

4536-548: The Space Cadet pinball table , font smoothing , showing window contents while dragging, high-color icons and stretching the wallpaper to fit the screen. Windows Desktop Update could also be installed on Windows NT 4.0 to update the shell version and install Task Scheduler . Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit included the Desktop Themes utility. Windows NT 4.0 is the last major release of Microsoft Windows to support

4662-631: The ASF format, lacking support for all other formats such as MP4 , MPEG , and Microsoft's own AVI format. On the user interface front, it did not prevent screensavers from running during playback, it did not support file drag-and-drop, nor did it support playlists. While Windows Media Player 9 had added support for some files that use the WMV9 codec (also known as the WMV3 codec by the FourCC ), in other aspects it

4788-465: The Alpha , MIPS or PowerPC CPU architectures as Windows 2000 runs solely on IA-32 only. It remained in use by businesses for a number of years, despite Microsoft's many efforts to get customers to upgrade to Windows 2000 and newer versions. It was also the last release in the Windows NT family to be branded as Windows NT although Windows 2000 carried the designation "Built on NT Technology". Although

4914-561: The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992 was intended to resolve the debate over home taping. However, 17 USC 1008, the relevant text of the legislation, didn't fully indemnify consumers for noncommercial, private copying. Such copying is broadly permitted using analog devices and media, but digital copying is only permitted with certain technology like DAT, MiniDisc, and "audio" CD-R—not with computer hard drives, portable media players, and general-purpose CD-Rs. The AHRA

5040-485: The Media Transfer Protocol and Auto Sync. Auto Sync allows users to specify criteria such as recently added music or highest rated songs, by which media will be automatically synchronized with the portable device and other advanced features like setting the clock on the portable device automatically, communicating with the device to retrieve the user's preferences. Windows Media Player 10 also introduced

5166-529: The Now Playing pane and other playlists can be controlled from the Windows Explorer shell itself, via right-click menu. The My Music folder also includes a separate My Playlists folder where playlists are maintained. When the player is closed and reopened, simply clicking the play button restores the last playlist even if it was not saved. Starting with Windows Media Player 10, the playlist pane

Windows Media Player - Misplaced Pages Continue

5292-484: The Quick Access Panel was removed and replaced with an Explorer-style navigation pane on the left which can be customized for each library to show the user selected media or metadata categories, with contents appearing on the right, in a graphical manner with thumbnails featuring album art or other art depicting the item. Missing album art can be added directly to the placeholders in the Library itself (though

5418-1004: The SAMI file format but can also carry embedded closed caption data. The player can use video overlays or VMR (Video Mixing Renderer) surfaces, if the video card supports them. In Windows XP , it uses VMR7 by default, but can also be made to use the more advanced YUV mixing mode by enabling the "Use high quality mode" option in Advanced Performance settings. This turns on deinterlacing, scaling and improved color accuracy. WMP 9 Series introduced native playback for deinterlacing for TV output. Version 9 introduced DXVA accelerated playback. Version 11 introduced improved support for DirectX accelerated decoding of WMV video ( DXVA decoding). Up to version 11, it supported static lyrics and "Synchronized Lyrics,” by which different lines of lyrics can be time-stamped, so that they display only at those times. Synchronized Lyrics also were accessible through

5544-598: The Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal , the FTC declared that the marketing and sale of audio CDs which surreptitiously installed digital rights management (DRM) software constituted deceptive and unfair trade practices, in part because the record company "represented, expressly or by implication, that consumers will be able to use the CDs as they are commonly used on a computer: to listen to, transfer to playback devices, and copy

5670-616: The UMDF -based Windows Portable Devices API. Version 11 has improved synchronization features for loading content onto PlaysForSure -compatible portable players. WMP 11 supports reverse-synchronization, by which media present on the portable device can be replicated back to the PC. Shuffle Sync can be used to randomize content synced with the portable device, Multi PC Sync to synchronize portable device content across multiple PCs and Guest Sync to synchronize different content from multiple PCs with

5796-611: The WebM file type is not officially associated with Windows Media Player 12 (the default player is Microsoft Movies & TV ), playback of VP9 video in WebM container is possible on Windows 10 version 1809 and later. Windows Media Player Mobile 10 on Windows Mobile 6.5 supports MP3 , ASF , WMA , and WMV using WMV or MPEG-4 codecs. Windows Media Player features integrated Audio CD -burning support since version 7 as well as data CD burning support since Windows Media Player 9 Series on Windows XP and later. Data CDs can have any of

5922-467: The Windows Desktop Update . Windows NT 4.0 upgraded NTVDM 's x86 emulation in the RISC versions from 286 to 486 . Sysprep was introduced as a deployment tool with Windows NT 4.0. Windows NT 4.0, like previous versions of Windows NT before it and versions after it, is a fully 32-bit OS, while Windows 95 is a 16/32-bit hybrid OS. While providing much greater stability than Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0

6048-399: The public domain , and the person making the rip does not have the copyright owner's permission, then such ripping may be regarded as copyright infringement . However, some countries either explicitly allow it in certain circumstances, or at least don't forbid it. Some countries also have fair use -type laws which allow unauthorized copies to be made under certain conditions. A directive of

6174-666: The "Modernising Copyright" report makes clear that any workarounds to allow access will not involve a relaxation of the prohibition. On 17 July 2015, the private copying exemption was overturned by the High Court of Justice following a complaint by BASCA , Musicians' Union , and UK Music , making private copying once again illegal. The groups objected to the exclusion of a compensation scheme, presenting evidence contradicting an assertion that an exemption would cause "zero or insignificant harm" to copyright holders and thus did not require compensation. U.S. copyright law ( Title 17 of

6300-542: The Advanced Tag Editor which was removed in version 12. Since Windows Media Player 9 Series, the player supports crossfading, audio dynamic range (Quiet Mode) for WMA Pro and WMA Lossless, and auto volume leveling for certain media which includes volume level/gain information such as MP3 or Windows Media. The player also supports extensive configurable privacy and security settings. The player has Windows Explorer shell integration to add files and playlist to

6426-566: The CD drive's firmware to read this data and parse out just the LPCM samples. The software then dumps them into a WAV or AIFF file, or feeds them to another codec to produce, for example, a FLAC or MP3 file. Depending on the capabilities of the ripping software, ripping may be done on a track-by-track basis, or all tracks at once, or over a custom range. The ripping software may also have facilities for detecting and correcting errors during or after

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6552-523: The CSRSS process. This eliminated a process-to-process context switch in calling GDI functions, resulting in a significant performance improvement over Windows NT 3.51, particularly in the graphical user interface. This, however, also mandated that graphics and printer drivers had to run in kernel mode as well, resulting in potential stability issues. Windows NT 4.0 was the first release of Microsoft Windows to include DirectX as standard—version 2 shipped with

6678-574: The DMCA's prohibition on the circumvention of copy protection for non-infringing purposes. One such ruling in 2010 declared, among other things, that the Content Scramble System (CSS) commonly employed on commercial DVDs could be circumvented to enable non-infringing uses of the DVD's content. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) hailed the ruling as enabling DVD excerpts to be used for

6804-486: The European Union allows its member nations to instate in their legal framework a private copy exception to the authors and editors rights. If a member State chooses to do so, it must also introduce a compensation for the copyright holders. Most European countries, except for Norway, have introduced a private copying levy that compensates the owners directly from the country's budget. In 2009 the sum awarded to them

6930-489: The Intellectual Property Office published a guide for consumers to explain the forthcoming changes and to clarify what would remain illegal. The private copying exception may seem to conflict with the existing Copyright Directive prohibition on overriding or removing any DRM or TPM ( technical protection measures ) that are sometimes used on optical media to protect the content from ripping. However,

7056-488: The RIAA has never said whether it was legal or illegal, emphasizing that the RIAA had not yet taken anyone to court over that issue alone. Although certain types of infringement scenarios are allowed as fair use and thus are effectively considered non-infringing, "personal use" copying is not explicitly mentioned as a type of fair use, and case law has not yet established otherwise. According to Congressional reports, part of

7182-592: The Supreme Court in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. ' , MGM attorney Don Verrilli (later appointed United States Solicitor General by the Obama administration ), stated: "The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod . There

7308-580: The Task List utility, but it only shows applications currently on the desktop. To monitor CPU and memory usage, users were forced to use Performance Monitor . The task manager offers a more convenient way of getting a snapshot of all the processes running on the system at any given time. Internet Explorer 2 was bundled with Windows NT 4. The installation of Internet Explorer 4 on Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 3 or later) gave Windows NT 4.0 Active Desktop and browser integration into Windows Explorer, known as

7434-519: The UK government sought input on modernizing copyright exceptions for the digital age, and commissioned the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth . The review asserted that a private copying exception was overdue, citing that users were unaware of what was even legally allowed, and that a copyright law where "millions of citizens are in daily breach of copyright, simply for shifting

7560-519: The United States Code ) generally says that making a copy of an original work, if conducted without the consent of the copyright owner, is infringement. The law makes no explicit grant or denial of a right to make a "personal use" copy of another's copyrighted content on one's own digital media and devices. For example, space shifting , by making a copy of a personally owned audio CD for transfer to an MP3 player for that person's personal use,

7686-723: The WMP Goodies site. The player includes intrinsic support for Windows Media codecs and also WAV and MP3 media formats. On Windows XP and above with WMP 9 Series and later, the Windows Media Audio Professional codec is included which supports multichannel audio at up to 24-bit 192 kHz resolution. Windows Media Player 11 includes the Windows Media Format 11 runtime which adds low bitrate support (below 128 kbit/s for WMA Pro ), support for ripping music to WMA Pro 10 and updates

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7812-507: The Windows 2000 Server Family and Windows XP Embedded , respectively. The successor to Windows NT 3.51 , Windows NT 4.0 introduced the user interface of Windows 95 to the Windows NT family, including the Windows shell , File Explorer (known as Windows NT Explorer at the time), and the use of "My" nomenclature for shell folders (e.g. My Computer ). It also includes most components introduced with Windows 95 . Internally, Windows NT 4.0

7938-618: The Windows Mobile edition continues to be actively developed and supported by Microsoft. Version 1 of the Zune software was also based on Windows Media Player; later versions are not. Windows Media Player for Pocket PC was first announced on January 6, 2000, and has been revised on a schedule roughly similar to that of the Windows version. Currently known as "Media Player 10 Mobile,” this edition (released in October 2004) closely resembles

8064-657: The Windows NT 4.0 Workstation and Server Resource Kit (original release plus four supplements) which contained a large number of tools and utilities, such as desktops.exe which allowed the user to have multiple desktops, as well as third-party software. Microsoft stopped providing security updates for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on June 30, 2004, Windows NT 4.0 Server on December 31, 2004, and Windows NT 4.0 Embedded on July 11, 2006, due to major security flaws including Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-010 , which according to Microsoft could not be patched without significant changes to

8190-412: The ability to make discs unrestricted and region-free . While most DVD rippers only convert video to highly compressed MP4 video files, there are other rippers that can convert DVDs to higher quality compressed video. These types of DVD rippers are used by the television and film industry to create broadcast quality video from DVD. Video ripped by these professional DVD rippers is an exact duplicate of

8316-427: The ability to play digital video files in an AVI container format , with codec support for RLE and Video1 , and support for playing uncompressed 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 , and later integrated into Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 . In 1995, Microsoft released ActiveMovie with DirectX Media SDK. ActiveMovie incorporates

8442-502: The act of ripping, per se . The Copyright Act of Canada generally says that it is legal to make a backup copy of any copyrighted work if the user owns or has a licence to use a copy of the work or subject-matter as long as the user does not circumvent a technological protection measure or give any of the reproductions away. This means that in most cases, ripping DVDs in Canada is most likely illegal. In Australia and New Zealand

8568-479: The audio files contained on the CD for personal use." A DVD ripper is a computer program that facilitates copying the content of a DVD to a hard disk drive . They are mainly used to transfer video on DVDs to different formats, to edit or back up DVD content, and to convert DVD video for playback on media players and mobile devices. Some DVD rippers include additional features such as Blu-ray support, DVD and Blu-ray Disc decryption, copy protection removal and

8694-595: The capabilities of the Windows version of WMP 10, including playlist capabilities, a media library, album art, WMA Lossless playback, support for DRM-protected media, video playback at 640×480 with stereo sound, and the same Energy Blue interface aesthetics also seen in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. It also supports synchronization with the desktop version of WMP 10, and additionally supports synchronizing and transcoding of recorded television shows from Media Center. Media Player 10 Mobile

8820-584: The chief enhancement has been the addition of the Windows 95 shell, there are several major performance, scalability and feature improvements to the core architecture , kernel , USER32 , COM and MSRPC . Windows NT 4.0 also introduced the concept of system policies and the System Policy Editor . Other important features were: The server editions of Windows NT 4.0 include Internet Information Services 2.0, Microsoft FrontPage 1.1, NetShow Services , Remote Access Service (which includes

8946-468: The core operating system. According to the security bulletin, "Due to the fundamental differences between Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 and its successors, it is infeasible to rebuild the software for Windows NT 4.0 to eliminate the vulnerability. To do so would require re-architecting a very significant amount of the Windows NT 4.0 operating system, and there would be no assurance that applications designed to run on Windows NT 4.0 would continue to operate on

9072-687: The court in that case, and by both the House and Senate in committee reports about the AHRA, do interpret the legislation as being intended to permit private, noncommercial copying with any digital technology. However, these interpretations may not be binding. In 2007, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a government office which requires business to engage in consumer-friendly trade practices, has acknowledged that consumers normally expect to be able to rip audio CDs. Specifically, in response to

9198-473: The decoders were subsequently removed in Windows 8 and Windows 10 due to licensing costs. Windows Media Player 12 adds native support for H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 2 video formats, ALAC , AAC audio and 3GP , MP4 and MOV container formats. Windows Media Player 12 is also able to play AVCHD formats ( . M2TS and .mts ). As of Windows 10 , Windows Media Player 12 can play FLAC , HEVC , and SubRip subtitle, and Matroska container formats. Although

9324-513: The down conversion process can be omitted. In versions 11 (2006) and 12 (2009), the Quality settings that the user has selected in the Windows Media Player settings for Sync, for that specific portable device, are used to control the quality (bit-rate) of files that are copied to the portable device. Leaving the Quality settings to Automatic will often result in 192kbs files being copied to the portable device. Manual settings can also be made. 192kbs

9450-920: The down-conversion function is done in the Quality tab of the Advanced Options of the Sync settings for the device. In Windows Media Player Version 12, switching off the down-conversion function is done in the Quality tab of the Properties for the device in the Select Settings for the device in the Sync Options menu. When set up in such a way, Windows Media Player's 'Sync' function can be used to sync unchanged high bit-rate song files to suitable portable devices (i.e. those capable of using file formats such as WMA Lossless, mp3-360kbs, etc.). For example, some users have created large song libraries on their PCs containing .wma formatted song files using

9576-427: The entire library through a menu. The Quick Access Panel was also added to the mini-mode in version 10 but was entirely removed in version 11. WMP 9 Series also introduced ratings and Auto Ratings. Windows Media Player 10 introduced support for aggregating pictures, Recorded TV shows, and other media into the library. A fully featured tag editor was featured in versions 9-11 of WMP, called the Advanced Tag Editor. However,

9702-512: The feature was removed in Windows Media Player 12. Since WMP 9 Series, the player features dynamically updated Auto Playlists based on criteria. Auto Playlists are updated every time users open them. WMP 9 Series and later also supports Auto Ratings which automatically assigns ratings based on the number of times a song is played. Pre-populated auto playlists are included in Windows Media Player 9 Series. Custom Auto Playlists can be created only on Windows XP and later. In Windows Media Player 11,

9828-771: The files and to ensure that the file sizes were small enough to efficiently fit a reasonably large selection of songs on the portable device. In recent years (circa 2012), portable devices became available that could natively play these Windows Media Player produced high bit-rate WMA-LL files (and others), and that have storage capacities suitable for large collections of high bit-rate song files. This made it much more practicable and desirable to use software programs such as Windows Media Player to synchronize previously PC-bound libraries of high bit-rate songs to these new portable devices. Windows Media Player features universal brightness, contrast, saturation and hue adjustments and pixel aspect ratio for supported video formats. It also includes

9954-405: The files without using the ripping software's decryption ability, which may not be legal to distribute or use. DVD files are often larger than is convenient to distribute or copy to CD-R or ordinary (not dual-layer) DVD-R , so DVD ripping software usually offers the ability to re-encode the content, with some quality loss, so that it fits in smaller files. When the material being ripped is not in

10080-698: The first service pack was made available for the MIPS architecture, Service Pack 2 was the final release for the PowerPC architecture, and Service Pack 6 was the final release for the Alpha architecture. Service Pack 6a (SP6a) is the last released service pack for Windows NT 4.0. Service Pack 7 was planned at one stage in early 2001, but this became the Post SP6a Security Rollup and not a full service pack, released on July 26, 2001, 16 months following

10206-599: The hardware directly, but poorly written drivers became a frequent source of the infamous error known as the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) that would require the system to be restarted. In spite of shipping a year later than Windows 95, by default there is no Legacy Plug and Play support and no Device Manager on Windows NT 4.0, which greatly simplifies installation of hardware devices (although limited support could be installed later). Many basic DOS programs would run; however, graphical DOS programs would not run because of

10332-408: The high bit-rate WMA Lossless (WMA-LL) protocol, or using other high bit-rate song file formats. The WMA-LL protocol is selectable in Windows Media Player as an option when ripping songs from CDs. The resulting bit-rates seen on ripped WMA-LL files are often 3 to 6 times higher than 192kbs, and can typically fall anywhere in the range of 600kbs to 1200kbs, depending on the quality of the source file that

10458-535: The initial release of Windows NT 4.0, and version 3 was included with the release of Service Pack 3 in mid-1997. However advanced hardware accelerated Direct3D and DirectSound multimedia features were never available on Windows NT 4.0. Later versions of DirectX were not released for Windows NT 4.0. However, OpenGL was supported; it was used by Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament . In early releases of 4.0, numerous stability issues did occur as graphics and printer vendors had to change their drivers to be compatible with

10584-708: The introduction of Windows 2000 . Workstation , server and embedded editions were sold, and all editions feature a graphical user interface similar to that of Windows 95 . Windows NT 4.0 was the last public release of Windows for the Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC architectures. Mainstream support for Windows NT 4.0 Workstation ended on June 30, 2002, following by extended support ending on June 30, 2004. Windows NT 4.0 Server mainstream support ended on December 31, 2002, with extended support ending on December 31, 2004. Windows NT 4.0 Embedded mainstream support ended on June 30, 2003, followed by extended support on July 11, 2006. These editions were succeeded by Windows 2000 Professional,

10710-462: The kernel mode interfaces exported by GDI. The change to move the GDI to run in the same process context as its caller was prompted by complaints from NT Workstation users about real-time graphics performance, but this change put a considerable onus on hardware manufacturers to update device drivers. Windows NT 4.0 also included a new Windows Task Manager utility. Previous versions of Windows NT included

10836-522: The left while there is a thick black bar to the right side of the screen, or that there are no full screen controls). More visualizations such as "BlazingColors," "ColorCubes," "PulsingColors," "Softie the Snowman," and "Yule Log" were originally offered as optional extras in version 7 and were later made downloadable from Microsoft's official website, however the downloads have since been taken down. As of today, they can still be found on some websites such as

10962-714: The media formats supported by the player. While burning Data CDs, the media can, optionally, be transcoded into WMA format and playlists can be added to the CD as well. Starting with WMP 9 Series, audio CDs can be burnt with volume leveling. Audio CDs can be ripped as WMA or WMA 10 Pro (WMA 10 Pro in WMP 11 and later) at 48, 64, 96, 128, 160, and 192 kbit/s , WMA lossless (470 to 940 kbit/s) (9 Series on XP and later), WMA variable bitrate (from 40 to 75 kbit/s up to 240-355 kbit/s), MP3 at 128, 192, 256, and 320 kbit/s, or uncompressed WAV (WAV ripping in WMP 11 and later). Since WMP 9 Series, 20 bit high-resolution CDs ( HDCDs ) are also supported, if capable audio hardware

11088-521: The media management functions. It also can preview songs from the library when users hover over the media file and click the Preview button. Windows Media Player 12 can play unprotected songs from the iTunes library. As previously mentioned, taskbar-integrated mini-mode has been replaced with controls in the taskbar's interactive thumbnail preview (called the Thumbnail Toolbar ), albeit minus

11214-416: The name, neither the media nor the data is damaged after extraction. Ripping is often used to shift formats , and to edit, duplicate or back up media content. A rip is the extracted content, in its destination format , along with accompanying files, such as a cue sheet or log file from the ripping software. To rip the contents out of a container is different from simply copying the whole container or

11340-417: The normal use of devices. Indeed, without that copying, normal use of those devices would be largely restricted to playing music or films bought online. We are not aware of strong evidence of harm to rights holders done by this kind of private copying in the normal course of using digital equipment to play works. There is considerable evidence of overall public benefits from consumer use. [...] The Review favours

11466-410: The online Windows Media database when the CD is inserted. Version 11 added support for ripping audio CDs to WAV and WMA 10 Pro formats. With their 2015 implementation in Windows 10, Version 12 also added lossless FLAC and ALAC formats for ripping and playback. For burning, version 11 shows a graphical bar indicating how much space will be used on the disc and introduced Disc spanning which splits

11592-515: The original DVD video. In the case where media contents are protected using some effective copy protection scheme, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 makes it illegal to manufacture or distribute circumvention tools and use those tools for infringing purposes. In the 2009 case RealNetworks v. DVD CCA , the final injunction reads, "while it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store

11718-465: The original WMA to version 9.2. Support for any media codec and container format can be added using specific DirectShow filters or Media Foundation codecs (Media Foundation codecs only in Windows Vista and later). The player will not play MP3 files that contain compressed ID3 headers ("tags"), trying to do so results in a "The input media file is invalid" error message. MP3 playback support

11844-664: The player did not receive an upgrade. On April 16, 2012, Microsoft announced that Windows Media Player would not be included in Windows RT , the line of Windows designed to run on ARM-based devices. A different app called Media Player is the successor to Groove Music (previously Xbox Music) and Windows Media Player. Media Player started to be offered to all Windows 11 users on February 15, 2022, with Windows 10 users following in January 2023. The new Windows Media Player can also play video, as part of Groove 's rebranding from

11970-484: The player is upgraded. Some skins such as the ones included in previous versions can be downloaded from the Microsoft website, however they have since been removed. It has been archived since 2016 and is currently available. The Corporate skin is not deletable. Microsoft Windows Media Runtime in Windows 2000 , Windows XP , Windows Vista and Windows Server contained a bug that permitted "remote code execution if

12096-586: The portable device. Portable devices appear in the navigation pane of the library where their content can be browsed and searched. Windows Media Player's 'Sync' function has options that allow it to be set to automatically down-convert (transcode) high bit-rate song files to a lower bit-rate. This down-conversion function is switched on by default. This is useful for providing low bit-rate files to those portable devices that need them, and to save space on portable devices with smaller storage capacities. For high bit-rate capable devices with sufficient storage capabilities,

12222-659: The program re-renders all album art imported this way into 1x1 pixel ratio, 200x200 resolution JPEGs ). There are separate Tiles , Icons , Details or Extended Tiles views for Music , Pictures , Video and Recorded TV which can be set individually from the navigation bar. Entries for Pictures and Video show their thumbnails. Version 11 also introduced the ability to search and display results on-the-fly as characters are being entered, without waiting for Enter key to be hit. Incremental search results are refined based on further characters that are typed. Stacking allows graphical representations of how many albums there are in

12348-682: The reform process, press reports circulated that ripping non-DRM-protected CDs and DVDs was no longer illegal. However, the actual legislation to implement the changes is not yet in force; the Intellectual Property Office had only begun seeking review of draft legislation in June 2013, and the resulting Statutory Instruments (SIs) weren't laid out for Parliamentary approval until March 27, 2014, and weren't actually approved until July 14 (Commons) and July 27 (Lords); with an effective date of October 1, 2014. Anticipating approval,

12474-841: The release of Windows 2000 and nearly three months prior to the release of Windows XP. In addition to bug fixes, the service packs also added a multitude of new features such as Ultra DMA mode for disk drives along with bus mastering, newer versions of Internet Information Services , user accounts and user profile improvements, smart card support, improved symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability, clustering capabilities, MMX / 3DNow! / SSE / SSE2 support, AGP support, COM support improvements, Event Log service, MS-CHAPv2 and NTLMv2 , SMB packet signing, Syskey , boot improvements, WINS improvements, Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS), PPTP , DCOM/HTTP tunneling improvements, IGMPv2, WMI , Active Accessibility and NTFS 3.0 support among others. Microsoft released five revisions of

12600-414: The rip, as the process is not always reliable, especially when the CD or the drive containing the CD itself is damaged or defective. There are also DVD rippers which operate in a similar fashion. Unlike audio CDs, DVDs do contain data formatted in files for use in computers. However, commercial DVDs are often encrypted (for example, using Content Scramble System /ARccOS Protection), preventing access to

12726-499: The ripper. Public distribution of ripped files is not allowed. In Spain , anyone is allowed to make a private copy of a copyrighted material for oneself, providing that the copier has accessed the original material legally. Private copying of copyrighted material is illegal in the United Kingdom. According to a 2009 survey, 59% of British consumers believed ripping a CD to be legal, and 55% admitted to doing it. In 2010,

12852-423: The streamed format, Windows Media Player 12 transcodes the format on-the-fly. Media from a home network can also be streamed over the internet using an Online ID Provider service, which handles discovery of the computer's IP address, authorization, security, connectivity and Quality of Service issues. Windows Media Player also features skins. Currently, Windows Media Player has two default skins: "Corporate,” which

12978-438: The video border color. Color chooser has been removed in WMP 12. It supports visualizations and Info Center View (Info Center View in WMP 9 Series and later) which displays media metadata fetched from the internet. Full screen visualizations are supported in WMP 9 Series and later. It supports Background plug-ins, window plug-ins and Now Playing plug-ins to control media playback besides DSP and renderer plug-ins. Plug-in support

13104-402: The volume control function, track and album information shown whenever a new song is played and the progress bar. The taskbar icon also supports jump lists introduced in Windows 7 . The player has had skinning support since Windows Media Player (WMP) 7 and includes a color chooser since the WMP 9 Series. Not all functions are usually exposed in skin mode. Windows Media Player 10 allows setting

13230-506: The way they accessed graphics hardware. Although Windows NT 4.0 introduced an application programming interface (API) for defragmentation, there was no built-in defragmentation utility, unlike Windows 95. Also, Windows NT 4.0 lacked USB support, a preliminary version of which would be added to OEM editions of Windows 95 in OSR 2.1. AGP support can be added with SP3 or later. Large disk (> 8 GB) support can be added with SP4 or later. FAT32

13356-501: The well-established fair-use activities of criticism and commentary, and for the creation of derivative works by video remix artists. However, the text of the ruling says the exemption can only be exercised by professional educators and their students, not the general public. Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It

13482-403: The wmpband.dll file from Windows Media Player 11. The user interface has been redesigned in Windows Media Player 12 such that the Now Playing view plays media in a separate minimalist window with floating playback controls, and also gives access to the current playlist, visualizations, and enhancements. Enhancements are housed in individual undocked windows. The library view includes the rest of

13608-587: Was $ 55 million. In all but a few of these countries (exceptions include the UK and Malta), the levy is excised on all machines and blank materials capable of copying copyrighted works. Under the directive, making copies for other people is forbidden, and if done for profit can lead to a jail sentence. In the Netherlands , citizens are allowed to make copies of their legally bought audio and video. This includes CD , SACD , as well as DVD and Blu-ray . These copies are called "home copies" and may only be used by

13734-486: 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, which included the removal of the Windows Media Source Filter (DirectShow codec). In 2004, Microsoft launched digital music store MSN Music for new Windows Media Player 10 to compete with Apple iTunes. However, MSN Music

13860-825: Was also a downloadable feature which replaced Windows NT 4.0's separate RAS and Multi-Protocol Routing services. The last version of Microsoft Office to be compatible with Windows NT 4.0 is Office XP . Similarly, Windows Media Player 7.0 (which was released in June 2000) and DirectX 3.0a (which was released in December 1996) are the last versions of Windows Media Player and DirectX available for Windows NT 4.0, respectively. The last versions of .NET Framework and Windows Installer available for Windows NT 4.0 are .NET Framework 1.1 (released in April 2003) and Windows Installer 2.0 (released in September 2001), respectively. The last version of Internet Explorer supported on Windows NT 4.0

13986-654: Was available as a free-bundled CD starting around 1998, which included IIS 4.0 with Active Server Pages , FrontPage Server Extensions , Certificate Server, MTS , MSMQ , CDONTS , Internet Authentication Service (IAS), Indexing Service , Microsoft Management Console 1.0, Microsoft Site Server , SMTP and NNTP services and other new software. It is the only Option Pack to be released, as most of its features have been integrated into Windows 2000 . Several features such as Distributed File System and Windows NT Load Balancing Service (WLBS) were delivered as addons for Windows NT Server 4.0. The Routing and Remote Access Service

14112-687: Was built-in beginning with version 6.1 and audio CD playback was natively supported with version 7. DVD playback features minus the necessary decoders were integrated into Windows Media Player 8 for Windows XP . The player activates DVD and Blu-ray playback functionality with support for menus, titles and chapters, parental controls and audio track language selection if compatible decoders are installed. MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital (AC-3) decoders were included beginning with Windows Media Player 11 on Windows Vista (Home Premium and Ultimate editions only) and Windows 7 (Home Premium, Ultimate, or Enterprise editions) to allow DVD playback without additional software. However,

14238-639: Was canceled by Microsoft. It was developed by the Windows Media team at Microsoft instead of the Macintosh Business Unit and released in 2003. On release the application lacked many basic features that were found in other media players such as Apple's iTunes and QuickTime . It also lacked support for many media formats that version 9 of the Windows counterpart supported on release 10 months earlier. The Mac version supported only Windows Media encoded media (up to version 9) enclosed in

14364-407: 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. In November of the following year, Video for Windows was introduced with

14490-517: Was discontinued already in 2006 with the launch of Zune music players. Beginning with Windows Vista , Windows Media Player supports the Media Foundation framework besides DirectShow; as such it plays certain types of media using Media Foundation as well as some types of media using DirectShow. Windows Media Player 12 was released with Windows 7 . It included support for more media formats and added new features. With Windows 8 , however,

14616-399: Was done with early day CD-ROM drives not capable of digital audio extraction (DAE). Sometimes even encoding, i.e. digitizing audio and video originally stored on analog formats , such as vinyl records is incorrectly referred to as ripping. A CD ripper , CD grabber or CD extractor is a piece of software designed to extract or "rip" raw digital audio (in format commonly called CDDA) from

14742-662: Was first introduced in version 8, and "Revert,” which first shipped with version 9. In previous versions of Windows Media Player starting with version 7, there were many usual skins offered, some of which were included in various versions of Windows. A non-exhaustive list of skins included with Windows Media Player from versions 7-10 are "9SeriesDefault,” "Atomic,” "Bluesky,” "Canvas,” "Classic,” "Compact,” "goo,” "Headspace,” "heart,” "iconic,” "Miniplayer,” "Optic,” "Pyrite,” "QuickSilver,” "Radio,” "Roundlet,” "Rusty,” "splat,” "Toothy,” "Windows Classic,” and "Windows XP.” All of these skins were removed starting with version 11, but are retained if

14868-399: Was further improved. While previous versions streamed media to UPnP compliant devices (Digital Media Server role) and could play media by fetching it from a network share (Digital Media Player role), Windows Media Player 12 can access media from the shared media libraries on the network or HomeGroup, stream media to DLNA 1.5 compliant devices and allows itself (once the remote control option

14994-484: Was integrated and allows content (Music, Pictures, Video) to be streamed to and from Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) AV enabled devices such as the PS3 , Xbox 360 , and Roku SoundBridge . This includes DRM protected PlaysForSure content. WMP 11 on Windows Vista can also act as a client to connect to remote media libraries using this feature; this is not available on the Windows XP version. With version 12, media streaming

15120-412: Was introduced in WMP 9 Series. The player integrates web-browsing support to browse online music stores, shop for music and tune to internet radio stations since version 7. It provides an embeddable ActiveX control for Internet Explorer so that developers can play Windows Media on web pages. Windows Media Player 10 and later feature integration with a large number of online music stores and selecting

15246-634: Was known as the Shell Update Release (SUR). While many administrative tools, notably User Manager for Domains , Server Manager and Domain Name Service Manager still used the old graphical user interfaces, the Start menu in Windows NT 4.0 separated the per-user shortcuts and folders from the shared shortcuts and folders by a separator line. Windows NT 4.0 includes some enhancements from Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 such as

15372-683: Was less flexible from a desktop perspective. Much of the stability was gained through the use of protected memory and the hardware abstraction layer . Direct hardware access was disallowed and "misbehaving" programs were terminated without needing the computer to be restarted. The trade-off was that NT required much more memory (32 MB for normal desktop use, 128 MB or more for heavy 3D applications) in comparison to consumer targeted products such as Windows 95. While nearly all programs written for Windows 95 run on Windows NT, many 3D games would not, partly because of limited DirectX support for Windows NT 4.0. Third-party device drivers were an alternative to access

15498-471: Was partially tested in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, Inc. , a late-1990s case which broached the subject of a consumer's right to copy and format-shift, but which ultimately only ascertained that one of the first portable MP3 players wasn't even a " digital recording device" covered by the law, so its maker wasn't required to pay royalties to the recording industry under other terms of the AHRA. Statements made by

15624-422: Was present on the CD in the first place. The sound quality is much improved over the default rate, although the file size is larger. At the time that Versions 11 and 12 were released, the capabilities and capacities of portable devices typically required down-conversion of the bit-rates of the files placed on the portable devices. Thus, Sync down-conversion was turned on by default. This was to ensure playability of

15750-408: Was renamed Groove Music in Windows 10 , and then finally Media Player in Windows 11 which has also been backported to Windows 10. The first version of Windows Media Player appeared in October 1991, when Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions was released. Originally called Media Player, this component was included with "Multimedia PC"-compatible machines but not available for retail sale. It

15876-484: Was seen as having degraded in features from previous versions. On January 12, 2006, Microsoft announced it had ceased development of Windows Media Player for Mac. Microsoft now distributes a third-party plugin called WMV Player (produced and maintained by Flip4Mac ) which allows some forms of Windows Media to be played within Apple's QuickTime Player and other QuickTime-aware applications. Ripping Ripping

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