52-411: Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music and Zune Marketplace ) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8 , Windows 8.1 , Windows 10 and Windows 11 . The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groove Music Pass , which was supported across Windows, Xbox video game consoles , Windows Phone , as well as Android and iOS . As of 2014,
104-479: A "flat" picture can be transformed so as to give an illusion of depth when viewed through anaglyph glasses (usually red-cyan). An image viewed through anaglyph glasses appears to have both protruding and deeply embedded objects in it, at the expense of somewhat distorted colors. The method itself is old enough , dating back to the mid-19th century, but it is only with recent advances in computer technology that it has become possible to apply this kind of transformation to
156-443: A 30% cut of app sales until it reached US$ 25,000 in revenue, after which the cut dropped to 20%. On January 1, 2015, the reduction in cut at $ 25,000 was removed, and Microsoft takes a 30% cut of all app purchases, regardless of overall sales. As of August 1, 2021, Microsoft only takes a 12% cut of app sales. Third-party transactions are also allowed, of which Microsoft does not take a cut. In 2015, over 669,000 apps were available on
208-471: A Groove Music Pass from the interface. On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Groove Music Pass service effective December 31, 2017. Existing subscribers were refunded, and Microsoft began promoting Spotify as an alternative by allowing saved playlists to be migrated to the service. Groove Music lets users create a collection of songs and playlists that roam through
260-470: A Web-based storefront called "Microsoft Store". Microsoft first announced Windows Store, a digital distribution service for Windows at its presentation during the Build developer conference on September 13, 2011. Further details announced during the conference revealed that the store would be able to hold listings for both certified traditional Windows apps, as well as what were called "Metro-style apps" at
312-426: A collection of objects composed of 3D vertices and textures, much like in any modern video game, to achieve special effects. Tedious and costly, this method is only used in a small fraction of movies produced worldwide, while most movies remain in the form of traditional 2D images. It is, however, possible to give an otherwise two-dimensional picture the appearance of depth. Using a technique known as anaglyph processing
364-604: A desire to also sell games on competing storefronts such as Steam . The new Xbox app subsequently became the main frontend for PC games available via Microsoft Store, and also integrates subscription service PC Game Pass . Movies and television shows are available for purchase or rental, depending on availability. Content can be played on the Microsoft Movies & TV app (available for Windows 10, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Xbox X/S), or Xbox Video app (available for Windows 8/RT PCs and tablets, and Windows Phone 8). In
416-413: A developer portal with which developers can interact. Microsoft takes 5–15% of the sale price for apps and 30% on Xbox games. Prior to January 1, 2015, this cut was reduced to 20% after the developer's profits reached $ 25,000. In 2021, 669,000 apps were available in the store. Categories containing the largest number of apps are "Books and Reference", "Education", "Entertainment", and "Games". The majority of
468-797: A seek bar, a timer with the current and total playback time, playback controls (play, pause, previous, next, stop), playlists, a "repeat" mode, and a "shuffle" (or "random") mode for curiosity and to facilitate searching long timelines of files. Different media players have different goals and feature sets. Video players are a group of media players that have their features geared more towards playing digital video . For example, Windows DVD Player exclusively plays DVD-Video discs and nothing else. Media Player Classic can play individual audio and video files but many of its features such as color correction, picture sharpening, zooming, set of hotkeys , DVB support and subtitle support are only useful for video material such as films and cartoons. Audio players , on
520-754: A series of frames in a motion picture reasonably fast or even in real-time, i.e. as the video is being played back. Several implementations exist in the form of 3D video players that render conventional 2D video in anaglyph 3D, as well as in the form of 3D video converters that transform video into stereoscopic anaglyph and transcode it for playback with regular software or hardware video players. Well known examples of media player software include Windows Media Player , VLC media player , iTunes , Winamp , Media Player Classic , MediaMonkey , foobar2000 , AIMP , MusicBee and JRiver Media Center . Most of these also include music library managers. Although media players are often multi-media, they can be primarily designed for
572-512: A specific media. For example, Media Player Classic and VLC media player are video-focused while Winamp and iTunes are music-focused, despite all of them supporting both types of media. A home theater PC or media center computer is a convergence device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that supports video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Although computers with some of these capabilities were available from
SECTION 10
#1732772072846624-486: A tooltip bubble previewing footage at the position hovered over with the mouse cursor. A preview tooltip for the seek bar has been implemented on few smartphones through a stylus or a self-capacitive touch screen able to detect a floating finger. Such include the Samsung Galaxy S4, S5 (finger), Note 2, Note 4 (stylus), and Note 3 (both). Streaming media players may indicate buffered segments of
676-466: A unified distribution point for apps, console games , and digital videos . Digital music was included until the end of 2017, and E-books were included until 2019. As with other similar platforms, such as the Google Play and Mac App Store , Microsoft Store is curated, and apps must be certified for compatibility and content. In addition to the user-facing Microsoft Store client, the store has
728-593: The App-V system to allow sandboxing . In February 2018, Microsoft announced that Progressive Web Apps would begin to be available in the Microsoft Store, and Microsoft would automatically add selected quality progressive web apps through the Bing crawler or allow developers to submit Progressive Web Apps to the Microsoft Store. Starting from Windows 10 version 1803, fonts can be downloaded and installed from
780-519: The EdgeHTML -based Microsoft Edge . The ability to open ePub e-books was removed during the shift to the Chromium -based Microsoft Edge. On April 2, 2019, Microsoft announced that the sale of e-books on the Microsoft Store had ceased. Due to DRM licenses that would not be renewed, all books became inaccessible by July 2019, and Microsoft automatically refunded all users that had purchased books via
832-679: The Windows 8.1 Update reached the end of its extended support on January 10, 2023, excluding some Embedded editions, as well its server equivalent, Windows Server 2012 R2 . Windows 10 was released with an updated version of the Windows Store, which merged Microsoft's other distribution platforms ( Windows Marketplace , Windows Phone Store , Xbox Video and Xbox Music ) into a unified store front for Windows 10 on all platforms, offering apps, games, music, film, TV series, themes, and ebooks. In June 2017, Spotify became available in
884-514: The Windows Store ) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft . It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps . With Windows 10 1803 , Microsoft merged its other distribution platforms ( Windows Marketplace , Windows Phone Store , Xbox Music , Xbox Video , Xbox Store , and a web storefront also known as "Microsoft Store") into Microsoft Store, making it
936-615: The Groove Music app with a new Windows Media Player app in January 2022 via an update from the Microsoft Store ; it initially applied to Windows 11 , with Windows 10 following suit in January 2023. Groove Music Pass (formerly Xbox Music Pass and Zune Music Pass ) is a discontinued pay subscription service that allowed unlimited streaming of the service's catalog on any device with the service installed. The pricing in
988-875: The Groove catalogue had over 50 million tracks. Its subscription service Groove Music Pass was officially discontinued on December 31, 2017, and the Android and iOS versions of the Groove Music app were discontinued in December 2018, restricting the player to its native Microsoft Store base. Groove Music was superseded by Media Player in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The update was rolled out to Windows 10 users between January and June 2023. Microsoft had previously ventured into music services with its Zune brand. The Zune Marketplace included 11 million tracks. The line of Zune players and Zune music store were somewhat unsuccessful, and
1040-404: The Microsoft Store. In Windows 11 , Microsoft Store received an updated user interface, and a new pop-up designed to handle installation links from websites. Microsoft also announced a number of changes to its policies for application submissions to improve flexibility and make the store more "open", including supporting "any kind of app, regardless of app framework and packaging technology", and
1092-520: The U.S. included monthly and annual subscriptions. A one-month trial offer was available, but those who previously tried the Zune Music Pass subscription prior to the rebranding were ineligible for this offer. An advertising-supported streaming tier was previously available, but discontinued effective December 1, 2014. Music could also be purchased directly from Windows Store . Users' purchased music, and playlists consisting of songs available on
SECTION 20
#17327720728461144-607: The United States, a Microsoft account can be linked to the Movies Anywhere digital locker service (separate registration required), which allows purchased content to be played on other platforms (e.g. MacOS, Android, iOS). Microsoft Movies & TV is currently available in the following 21 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
1196-540: The United States, and the United Kingdom. The purchase of TV shows is not currently supported in Belgium. On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced that the sale of digital music on the Microsoft Store would cease on December 31 after the discontinuation of Groove Music Pass. Users were able to transfer their music to Spotify until January 31, 2018. Books bought from the Microsoft Store were formerly accessible on
1248-550: The Windows Store. In September 2017, Microsoft began to re-brand Windows Store as Microsoft Store, with a new icon carrying the Microsoft logo. Xbox Store was merged into this new version of the platform. This is in line with Microsoft's platform convergence strategy on all Windows 10 -based operating systems. Web apps and traditional desktop software can be packaged for distribution on Windows Store. Desktop software distributed through Windows Store are packaged using
1300-511: The ability for apps to automatically update was also added. Windows 8.1 Update also introduced other notable presentation changes, including increasing the top app lists to return 1000 apps instead of 100 apps, a "picks for you" section, and changing the default sorting for reviews to be by "most popular". Updates to apps published on the Store after June 30, 2023, are no longer available to Windows 8.1 . Per Microsoft lifecycle policies,
1352-559: The ability for developers to freely use first- or third-party payment platforms (in non-game software only) rather than those provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Store is not installed by default in Windows Server 2012 or later versions of Windows Server. Apps that would normally be available in the Store can be installed through sideloading . Microsoft Store is the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps to users. Sideloading apps from outside
1404-499: The ability to adjust appearance and acoustics during playback using effects such as mirroring, rotating, cropping, cloning, adjusting colours, deinterlacing , and equalizing and visualizing audio . Easter eggs may be featured, such as a puzzle game on VLC Media Player . Still snapshots may be extracted directly from a video frame or captured through a screenshot, the former of which is preferred since it preserves videos' original dimensions (height and width). Video players may show
1456-469: The app developers have one app. Microsoft previously maintained a similar digital distribution system for software known as Windows Marketplace , which allowed customers to purchase software online. The marketplace tracked product keys and licenses, allowing users to retrieve their purchases when switching computers. Windows Marketplace was discontinued in November 2008. At this point, Microsoft opened
1508-422: The brand was largely discontinued at the beginning of the 2010s, although it continued to exist on different devices and the Zune Music Pass offered unlimited access to songs for US$ 9.99 per month. During its E3 2012 press conference, and in the wake of the upcoming release of Windows 8 , Microsoft announced the relaunch of the service as Xbox Music . With the accompanying announcement of Xbox Video , this move
1560-477: The case of paid apps, refunds may be issued when this is done. Microsoft initially banned PEGI "18"-rated content from the store in Europe. However, critics noted that this made the content policies stricter than intended, as some PEGI 18-rated games are rated "Mature" on the U.S. ESRB system, which is the next lowest before its highest rating, "Adults Only". The guidelines were amended in December 2012 to remove
1612-595: The cloud on all the supported devices. The songs can be added from the Groove Music Store or matched (within the Groove Music Catalog) to songs either saved locally on the user's machine or uploaded to the user's OneDrive account for the country the user is in. The Groove Music API provides access to RESTful web services for developers to leverage the catalog and features of the service in their application or website. Countries where Groove
Groove Music - Misplaced Pages Continue
1664-683: The competing service Spotify , displaying a banner ad for the service within the Groove Music user interface, and offering the ability to migrate music collections and playlists to Spotify. As a side effect of the discontinuation, on May 31, 2018, Microsoft additionally announced that the Groove Music apps for Android and iOS would also be discontinued and cease functioning on December 1, 2018, with users being redirected to Google Play Music and iTunes Match for similar cloud synchronization functionality (the OneDrive app still offered limited music playback functions within). Microsoft began replacing
1716-664: The current position in the duration of the media file. Mainstream operating systems have at least one default media player. For example, Windows comes with Windows Media Player , Microsoft Movies & TV and Groove Music , while macOS comes with QuickTime Player and Music . Linux distributions come with different media players, such as SMPlayer , Amarok , Audacious , Banshee , MPlayer , mpv , Rhythmbox , Totem , VLC media player , and xine . Android comes with YouTube Music for audio and Google Photos for video, and smartphone vendors such as Samsung may bundle custom software. The basic feature set of media players are
1768-436: The discrepancy. On October 8, 2020, Microsoft announced a commitment to ten "principles" of fairness to developers in the operation of the Microsoft Store. These include transparency over its rules, practices, and Windows' "interoperability interfaces", not preventing competing application storefronts to run on Windows, charging developers "reasonable fees" and not "forc[ing]" them to include in-app purchases, allowing access to
1820-426: The feature set of Media Player Classic and MediaMonkey combined. By default, videos are played with fully visible field of view while filling at least either width or height of the viewport to appear as large as possible. Options to change the video's scaling and aspect ratio may include filling the viewport through either stretching or cropping, and "100% view" where each pixel of the video covers exactly one pixel on
1872-482: The jurisdiction, religion or norms of the target market. They may also not encourage, facilitate or glamorize violence, drugs, tobacco, alcohol and weapons. Video game console emulators that are "primarily gaming experiences or target Xbox One" and third-party web browsers that use their own layout engines , are prohibited on Microsoft Store. Microsoft has indicated that it can remotely disable or remove apps from end-user systems for security or legal reasons; in
1924-427: The late 1980s, the "Home Theater PC" term first appeared in mainstream press in 1996. Since 2007, other types of consumer electronics, including gaming systems and dedicated media devices have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized computer programs designed to run on standard personal computers . Windows Store The Microsoft Store (formerly known as
1976-399: The media in the seek bar. 3D video players are used to play 2D video in 3D format. A high-quality three-dimensional video presentation requires that each frame of a motion picture be embedded with information on the depth of objects present in the scene. This process involves shooting the video with special equipment from two distinct perspectives or modeling and rendering each frame as
2028-554: The other hand, specialize in digital audio . For example, AIMP exclusively plays audio formats. MediaMonkey can play both audio and video formats, but many of its features including media library, lyric discovery, music visualization , online radio, audiobook indexing, and tag editing are geared toward consumption of audio material; watching video files on it can be a trying feat. General-purpose media players also do exist. For example, Windows Media Player has exclusive features for both audio and video material, although it cannot match
2080-473: The re-branding was intended to disassociate the service from the Xbox product line, making it more inclusive to non-Xbox platforms. On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced that its subscription service, Groove Music Pass, and music purchases on Windows Store would be discontinued after December 31, 2017, leaving support for playing music stored locally and on OneDrive. At the same time, Microsoft began advertising
2132-626: The same standards as others on the store. The announcement came in the wake of a lawsuits against Apple, Inc. and Google LLC by Epic Games over alleged anticompetitive practices conducted by their own application stores. With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft announced that it would not require software (excluding games) distributed via Microsoft Store to use its own payment platforms, and that it will also allow third-party storefronts (such as Amazon Appstore —which will be used for its Android app support, and Epic Games Store ) to offer their clients for download via Microsoft Store. In addition to
Groove Music - Misplaced Pages Continue
2184-400: The screen. Zooming into the field of view during playback may be implemented through a slider on any screen or with pinch zoom on touch screens, and moving the field of view may be implemented through scrolling by dragging inside the view port or by moving a rectangle inside a miniature view of the entire field of view that denotes the magnified area. Media player software may have
2236-515: The service could be synced through OneDrive and accessed from multiple devices. Songs in a user's local library on a Windows 8.1 PC could be matched and made available to other devices if available on Groove Music Pass. Custom "radio stations" could be generated using songs related to user-selected songs. Songs could be downloaded for offline listening on smartphones. Uploading of non-Groove music became available on Windows 10. Windows 10's Anniversary Update allowed users to hide features that require
2288-415: The service. Similar to Windows Phone Store , Microsoft Store is regulated by Microsoft. Applicants must obtain Microsoft's approval before their app becomes available on the store. These apps may not contain, support or approve, gratuitous profanity, obscenity, pornography, discrimination, defamation, or politically offensive content. They may also not contain contents that are forbidden by or offensive to
2340-628: The store after July 1, 2019, are no longer available to Windows 8 RTM users. Per Microsoft lifecycle policies, the RTM version of Windows 8 has been unsupported since January 12, 2016, excluding some Embedded editions, as well its server equivalent, Windows Server 2012 . An updated version of Windows Store was introduced in Windows ;8.1 . Its home page was remodeled to display apps in focused categories (such as popular, recommended, top free and paid, and special offers) with expanded details, while
2392-470: The store by any developer as long as their software meets "objective standards and requirements", not blocking apps based on their business model, how it delivers its services, or how it processes payments, not impeding developers from "communicating directly with their users through their apps for legitimate business purposes", not using private data from the store to influence the development of competing for software by Microsoft, and holding its own software to
2444-540: The store is supported on Windows 10 on an opt-in basis, but Windows 8 only allows sideloading to be enabled if the device is running the Enterprise edition of Windows 8 on a domain . Sideloading on Windows RT , Windows 8 Pro, and on Windows 8 Enterprise computers without a domain affiliation, requires the purchase of additional licenses through volume licensing . Individual developers are able to register for US$ 19 and companies for US$ 99. Initially, Microsoft took
2496-847: The store, including apps for Windows NT , Windows Phone , and UWP apps, which work on both platforms. Categories containing the largest number of apps are "Games", "Entertainment", "Books and Reference", and "Education". The majority of the app developers have one app. Both free and paid apps can be distributed through Microsoft Store, with paid apps ranging in cost from US$ 0.99 to $ 999.99. Developers from 120 countries can submit apps to Microsoft Store. Apps may support any of 109 languages, as long as they support one of 12 app certification languages. From 2016 to 2019, most Microsoft Studios games ported to PC were distributed exclusively via Microsoft Store. Microsoft later abandoned this strategy in May 2019, amid criticism of limitations faced by UWP-based games, and
2548-551: The time: tightly- sandboxed software based on Microsoft design guidelines that are constantly monitored for quality and compliance. For consumers, Windows Store is intended to be the only way to obtain Metro-style apps. While announced alongside the "Developer Preview" release of Windows 8 , Windows Store itself did not become available until the "Consumer Preview", released in February 2012. Updates to apps published on
2600-556: The user facing Microsoft Store client, the store also has a developer portal with which developers can interact. The Windows developer portal has the following sections for each app: Microsoft Store provides developer tools for tracking apps in the store. The dashboard also presents a detailed breakdown of users by market, age, and region, as well as charts on the number of downloads, purchases, and average time spent in an app. Microsoft Store has widely received negative reviews since its inception. Unavailability of popular apps has been
2652-655: Was available included: The app in Windows 10 supports a number of formats, including: Audio player (software) Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD players , such as play ( [REDACTED] ), pause ( [REDACTED] ), fastforward (⏩️), rewind (⏪), and stop ( [REDACTED] ) buttons. In addition, they generally have progress bars (or "playback bars"), which are sliders to locate
SECTION 50
#17327720728462704-509: Was intended to position Xbox as the company's main entertainment brand. Both services launched on October 16, 2012. On July 6, 2015, Microsoft announced the re-branding of Xbox Music as Groove to tie in with the impending release of Windows 10 . The new brand utilized the Microsoft-owned "Groove" trademark formerly used for the unrelated product Microsoft Office Groove (now OneDrive for Business ). Joe Belfiore explained that
#845154