QuickPlay is a technology pioneered by Hewlett-Packard that allows users to directly play multimedia without booting a computer to the main operating system. QuickPlay software, known as QuickPlay or HP QuickPlay is software custom developed for HP by CyberLink Corp. A media component of HP Pavilion Entertainment laptops, QuickPlay is a feature of the dv1000 series and above, including the new Pavilion HDX series of notebooks. QuickPlay is also a feature of many other HP Compaq notebooks. The technology has been emulated by other computer manufacturers such as Dell, Alienware, and Toshiba in various iterations.
The Hewlett-Packard Company or Hewlett-Packard was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components as well as software and related services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors.
In computing, booting is starting up a computer or computer appliance until it can be used. It can be initiated by hardware such as a button press or by software command. After the power is switched on, the computer is relatively dumb and can read only part of its storage called read-only memory (ROM). There, a small program is stored called firmware. It does power-on self-tests, and most importantly, allows accessing other types of memory like a hard disk and main memory. The firmware loads bigger programs into the computer's main memory and runs it. In general purpose computers, but additionally in smartphones and tablets, optionally a boot manager is run. The boot manager lets a user choose which operating system to run and set more complex parameters for it. The firmware or the boot manager then loads the boot loader into the memory and runs it. This piece of software is able to place an operating system kernel like Windows or Linux into the computer's main memory and run it. Afterwards, the kernel runs so-called user space software – well known is the graphical user interface (GUI), which lets the user log in to the computer or run some other applications. The whole process may take seconds to tenths of seconds on modern day general purpose computers.
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs.
QuickPlay software revisions up to version 2.3 have two main components. The first component is a "Direct" function that provides instant access upon boot to music CDs, DVD movies, and MP3s stored on the hard drive. It is launched by the QuickPlay external button found on the notebook or included IR remote. QuickPlay "Direct" is possible through software on a separate partition with a custom operating system (Linux for QuickPlay 1.0 and Windows XP embedded for QuickPlay 2.3) installed. The secondary component of QuickPlay software (all versions) is an application run under Windows with identical functions. Newer versions of the Windows-only component (QuickPlay versions above 2.3) have additional gaming and karaoke functions.
DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed in 1995. The medium can store any kind of digital data and is widely used for software and other computer files as well as video programs watched using DVD players. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions.
MP3 is a coding format for digital audio. Originally defined as the third audio format of the MPEG-1 standard, it was retained and further extended—defining additional bit-rates and support for more audio channels—as the third audio format of the subsequent MPEG-2 standard. A third version, known as MPEG 2.5—extended to better support lower bit rates—is commonly implemented, but is not a recognized standard.
QuickPlay software versions 3.0 and newer included in notebooks shipping with Windows Vista, solely retain the Windows-only component, as the "Direct" component is no longer implemented due to unresolved compatibility issues. Instead, users must first boot Windows Vista and log into their user accounts before the Windows-only version of the QuickPlay software can be run. This occurs regardless of whether QuickPlay is launched externally (via a notebook button or IR remote button) when the notebook is off, or when Windows Vista is running. QuickPlay software has been replaced by the HP MediaSmart Software on HP Desktops and Notebook PC
Windows Vista is an operating system that was produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Development was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; it is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform. The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems.
HP QuickPlay should not be confused with the QuickPlay project hosted by sourceforge.net.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Related Research Articles
NTLDR is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT operating system up to and including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. NTLDR is typically run from the primary hard disk drive, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk. NTLDR can also load a non NT-based operating system given the appropriate boot sector in a file.
In computers, instant-on is the ability to boot nearly instantly, thus allowing to go online or to use a specific application without waiting for a PC's traditional operating system to launch. Instant-on technology is today mostly used on laptops, netbooks, and nettops because the user can boot up one program, instead of waiting for the PC's entire operating system to boot. For instance, a user may want to just launch a movie-playing program or launch an internet browser, without needing the whole operating system. There are and were true instant-on machines such as the Atari ST, as described in the Booting article. These machines had complete Operating Systems resident in ROM similar to the way in which the BIOS function is conventionally provided on current computer architectures. The "instant-on" concept as used here results from loading an OS, such as a legacy system DOS, with a small hard drive footprint. Latency inherent to mechanical drive performance can also be eliminated by using Live USB or Live SD flash memory to load systems at electronic speeds which are orders of magnitude faster.
The Apple Remote is a remote control device released in or after October 2005 by Apple Inc. for use with a number of its products which use infrared capabilities. The device was originally designed to interact with the Front Row media program on the iSight iMac G5 and is compatible with some later desktop and portable Macintosh computers. The first three generations of Apple TV used the Apple Remote as their primary control mechanism. It has now been replaced with the Siri Remote in the fourth generation. Prior to the Apple Remote, Apple produced several nameless IR remotes for products such as the Macintosh TV, TV tuner expansion boards, and the PowerCD drive.
Windows XP introduced many features not found in previous versions of Windows.
The Apple–Intel architecture, or Mactel, is an unofficial name used for Apple Macintosh personal computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. that use Intel x86 processors, rather than the PowerPC and Motorola 68000 ("68k") series processors used in their predecessors. With the change in architecture, a change in firmware became necessary; Apple selected the Intel-designed Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) as its comparable component to the Open Firmware used on its PowerPC architectures, and as the firmware-based replacement for the PC BIOS from Intel. With the change in processor architecture to x86, Macs gained the ability to boot into x86-native operating systems, while Intel VT-x brought near-native virtualization with Mac OS X as the host OS.
The Windows NT startup process is the process by which Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems initialize. In Windows Vista and later, this process has changed significantly; see Windows Vista startup process for information about what has changed.
Compared with previous versions of Microsoft Windows, new features of Windows Vista are numerous, covering most aspects of the operating system. They include new technical features, new aspects of security and safety, new networking features, new I/O technologies, and additional management features.
The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consists of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the Autoplay feature. On some versions of Windows, it also includes Flip 3D and the charms. In Windows 10, the Windows Shell Experience Host interface drives visuals like the Start Menu, Action Center, Taskbar, and Task View/Timeline. However, the Windows shell also implements a shell namespace that enables computer programs running on Windows to access the computer's resources via the hierarchy of shell objects. "Desktop" is the top object of the hierarchy; below it there are a number of files and folders stored on the disk, as well as a number of special folders whose contents are either virtual or dynamically created. Recycle Bin, Libraries, Control Panel, This PC and Network are examples of such shell objects.
A recovery disc is any of various media containing a backup of the original factory condition or a favored condition of a computer as configured by an original equipment manufacturer or an end-user. OEM supplied recovery media are often shipped with computers to allow the user to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the operating system and pre-installed software as it was when it was shipped.
RIS, Remote Installation Services is a Microsoft-supplied server that allows PXE BIOS-enabled computers to remotely execute boot environment variables.
Windows Media Center Extenders are devices that are configured to connect over a computer network to a computer running Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium/Ultimate, Windows 7 Home Premium, or Windows 8 with a Pro pack to stream the computer's media center functions to the Extender device. This allows use of the Media Center and its features on a television receiver or other electronic visual display.
Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of the "Windows Setup" process, completely rewritten deployment mechanisms, support for per-application Remote Desktop sessions, new diagnostic and health monitoring tools, and a range of new Group Policy settings covering many of the features new to Windows Vista.
Emerge Desktop is a replacement shell for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 written in C++, primarily developed with the MinGW compiler, and is licensed under the GNU General Public License, Version 3.
Windows XP has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001.
Dell MediaDirect is a software application that is published by Dell, Inc. and is pre-installed on the computers they sell. It attempts to provide DVD and CD playback and recent editions include features such as an address book and calendar. It is a custom version of CyberLink PowerCinema developed and licensed to Dell by CyberLink. MediaDirect works in conjunction with the operating system and the Dell QuickSet application.
ThinkVantage Technologies is a set of system support utilities to reduce total cost of ownership of Lenovo brand desktop and laptop computers.
Some of the new features included in Windows 7 are advancements in touch, speech and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, support for additional file formats, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, and kernel improvements.
Microsoft Tablet PC is a term coined by Microsoft for tablet computers conforming to a set of specifications announced in 2001 by Microsoft, for a pen-enabled personal computer, conforming to hardware specifications devised by Microsoft and running a licensed copy of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system or a derivative thereof.
