A player with flash memory
A digital audio player is a device that stores, organizes and plays digital audio files. It is commonly referred to as MP3 player, or just MP3 (due to the ubiquity of the * .mp3 format), but digital audio players often play other file formats as some other proprietary formats other than MP3, for example Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and completely free of patents or are open as Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and Speex (all part of the open Ogg multimedia project) formats. Some players support restrictive DRM technology that are part of some proprietary formats such as DRM WMA, which are often part of certain paid download sites.
There are mainly three types of digital audio players:
MP3 CD players - devices that play CD. Often, they can be used to play audio CDs and data CDs containing MP3 home or other digital audio files.
Flash-based players - These are devices that store digital audio files on internal or external memory, such as memory cards. Usually these are devices with little storage capacity, typically between 128MB and 64GB, which can often be expanded with additional memory. Cheap and are impact resistant. (Currently they are the most used and has significantly increased its capacity can be several gigabytes of capacity). They are not equipped with CD and have a USB port.
Hard drive based players - Devices that read digital audio files from a hard drive. These players have larger storage capacities from 1.5GB to 180GB, depending on hard drive technology. A counterpart of flash based are sensitive to shock or even the slightest vibration can spoil when operated. Apple iPod, Creative Zen and Commodore Evic are examples of popular hard drive based players.
