Gom player
Encyclopedia
GOM Player is a 32-bit media player for Microsoft Windows
, distributed by the Gretech Corporation of South Korea
. It is alleged that Gretech distributes GOM Player in violation of copyright law.
It is the primary client player for South Korean GOM-TV, and is more popular in South Korea than any other media player. Key strengths inherited from libavcodec
include wide ranging ability to play media files, including .flv - without needing to obtain an external codec
, and the ability to play some broken media files. Both of those features are present in other projects using libavcodec
like VLC
and MPlayer
, but are absent from some other media software, including Windows Media Player
.
The word gom (곰) means "bear" in Korean, and as such GOM Player uses a bear's paw as its symbol.
The latest version of GOM Player will playback the following types of disc -
Video formats: MPEG-1
, MPEG-4 Part 2
, MS MPEG4 V1/2/3, MJPEG
, H.263(+)
, H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC)
, FLV1, MSVIDC
Audio formats: WAV
, MP3
, Vorbis
, AMR
, QCELP
, EVRC
GOM Player also supports Peer to Peer video streaming through an official add-on called GOMTV Streamer.
which will play that file format, using the format's GUID, a unique identifier for the required codec. On finding a match, it will direct the user to a webpage where the appropriate codec can be downloaded and installed.
The service mixes both ad-supported and pay-per-view content. Prices range from 500 won
and up (approximately 50 cents U.S.), with most movies available for 2,000 won (approximately US$2).
While the functions are very similar in the English and Korean language versions of GOM Player, the option to watch GOM TV is absent in the English language version.
The GOM Player (up to v2.1.9) allowed American users to connect to the GOM TV StarLeague (a channel of South Korea's GOM TV), to watch the latest matches in South Korea's StarCraft leagues (GOMTV Global Starcraft II League
and GOMTV Global Starcraft II Team League
). This feature was tested during the GOM TV Star Invitational, which airs each February. Despite this, the GOM television service is still not included in the English language release (so that foreign viewers who wish to watch StarCraft matches must use the StarCraft website to connect to the streaming servers). GOM TV now shows e-sports games of Starcraft and Warcraft, so A.V.A. Users can watch the videos for free or choose to pay a fee to download VODs (Video On Demand).
A survey of usage over a single week by Metrix, an internet survey company, found that 69.8% of users watched pornography, 43.2% watched cinematic movies, 29.6% watched television dramas, 21.8% watched variety show
s, 11% watched cartoons, and 7% watched music video
s. This is in line with South Korea being the greatest spender per capita on pornography, even though local production of pornography is illegal. Gretech disputes the credibility of this report.
Metrix obtained the survey data from 12,000 internet users who agreed to voluntarily install a monitoring tool. Only file names were used to categorize the media files included in the survey.
Gretech points out that media files played by GOM Player are not monitored, and that only the explicit installation of the Metrix survey software enabled that monitoring to be done.
's Hall of Shame, indicating that it is violating FFmpeg's software license terms. While GOM Player has now acknowledged that it uses FFmpeg source code, saying that it is licensed under the LGPL, and has provided some modified FFmpeg source code, according to FFmpeg
's Hall of Shame the GOM Player EULA is still in violation of the LGPL (and possibly the GPL), and insufficient source code has been released.
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, distributed by the Gretech Corporation of South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
. It is alleged that Gretech distributes GOM Player in violation of copyright law.
It is the primary client player for South Korean GOM-TV, and is more popular in South Korea than any other media player. Key strengths inherited from libavcodec
Libavcodec
libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project....
include wide ranging ability to play media files, including .flv - without needing to obtain an external codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
, and the ability to play some broken media files. Both of those features are present in other projects using libavcodec
Libavcodec
libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project....
like VLC
VLC
VLC may refer to:* Valencia Airport , an airport near Valencia, Spain* VLC media player, a free software cross-platform multimedia player and framework...
and MPlayer
MPlayer
MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
, but are absent from some other media software, including Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
.
The word gom (곰) means "bear" in Korean, and as such GOM Player uses a bear's paw as its symbol.
Supported files and devices
The latest version of GOM Player will playback the following types of media file.- Incomplete or damaged AVI files (skipping the damaged frames)
- Broken AVI files (rebuilding the file's Index in real-time)
- ASF/OGG/MP3/AVI files on an HTTP Streaming connection
- Using DirectShowDirectShowDirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
it will play these file formats: AVIAudio Video InterleaveAudio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
, WMV, MatroskaMatroskaThe Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
, QuickTimeQuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
, MP4, 3GP3GP3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones....
, Google VideoGoogle VideoGoogle Videos is a video search engine, and formerly a free video sharing website, from Google Inc. Before removing user-uploaded content, the service allowed selected videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provided the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube...
, Flash Video, VOBVOBA VOB file is a container format in DVD-Video media. VOB can contain video, audio, subtitle, menu and navigation contents multiplexed together into a stream form. VOB is based on the MPEG program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams...
, OggOggOgg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
, OGM, RMVBRMVBRealMedia Variable Bitrate is a variable bitrate extension of the RealMedia multimedia container format developed by RealNetworks....
, MPEG-1MPEG-1MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
, MPEG-2MPEG-2MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission... - RealMedia files (requires Real Alternative installed)
- QuickTime files (requires QuickTime AlternativeQuickTime AlternativeQuickTime Alternative is a codec package for Microsoft Windows for playing QuickTime media, normally only playable by the official QuickTime software distribution from Apple Inc.-Comparison:...
installed)
The latest version of GOM Player will playback the following types of disc -
- Audio CDRed Book (audio CD standard)Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...
(requires Windows 2000 or Windows XP) - DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
(requires MPEG-2 codec installed) - Video CDVideo CDBefore the advent of DVD and Blu-ray, the Video CD became the first format for distributing films on standard 120 mm optical discs. The format is a standard digital format for storing video on a Compact Disc...
s/SVCDs/XCD s
Supported video/audio formats
The latest version of GOM Player natively supports the following video and audio formats, without any external codecs -Video formats: MPEG-1
MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
, MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...
, MS MPEG4 V1/2/3, MJPEG
MJPEG
In multimedia, Motion JPEG is an informal name for a class of video formats where each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is separately compressed as a JPEG image...
, H.263(+)
H.263
H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bitrate compressed format for videoconferencing. It was developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group in a project ending in 1995/1996 as one member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T.H.263...
, H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC)
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...
, FLV1, MSVIDC
Video1
Microsoft Video 1 or MS-CRAM is an early video compression and decompression algorithm that was released with version 1.0 of Microsoft's Video for Windows in November 1992...
Audio formats: WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
, MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, Vorbis
Vorbis
Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
, AMR
Adaptive Multi-Rate
The Adaptive Multi-Rate audio codec is a patented audio data compression scheme optimized for speech coding. AMR was adopted as the standard speech codec by 3GPP in October 1999 and is now widely used in GSM and UMTS...
, QCELP
QCELP
Qualcomm code-excited linear prediction , also known as Qualcomm PureVoice, is a speech codec developed in 1994 by Qualcomm to increase the speech quality of the IS-96A codec earlier used in CDMA networks. It was later replaced with EVRC since it provides better speech quality with fewer bits...
, EVRC
EVRC
Enhanced Variable Rate CODEC is a speech codec used in CDMA networks. It was developed in 1995 to replace the QCELP vocoder which used more bandwidth on the carrier's network, thus EVRC's primary goal was to offer the mobile carriers more capacity on their networks while not increasing the amount...
GOM Player also supports Peer to Peer video streaming through an official add-on called GOMTV Streamer.
Subtitles
The latest version of GOM Player supports the following subtitle formats -- UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Text Subtitles - SAMI (smi)SAMISAMI is a Microsoft accessibility initiative released in 1998. The structured markup language is designed to simplify creating captions for media playback on a PC, i.e. not for broadcast purposes....
- SubRipText (srt)SubRipSubRip is a software program for Windows which "rips" subtitles and their timings from video. It is free software, released under the GNU GPL...
, MicroDVD (sub)MicroDVDMicroDVD is a subtitle file format for digital video. Its name is derived from a media player application designed to play DVD videos along with subtitles, originally developed by Tiamat Software. The application was first released in 2000 but development ended in 2001...
, SMIL/RealTextSynchronized Multimedia Integration LanguageSMIL , the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, is a W3C recommended XML markup language for describing multimedia presentations. It defines markup for timing, layout, animations, visual transitions, and media embedding, among other things... - SubStation Alpha (ssa)SubStation AlphaSubStation Alpha , abbreviated SSA, is a subtitle file format created by CS Low that allows for more advanced subtitles than the conventional SRT and similar formats. This format can be rendered with VSFilter in conjunction with a DirectShow-aware video player , or MPlayer with the SSA/ASS library...
, Advanced SubStation Alpha (ass) - VOBsub (sub/idx)VSFilterDirectVobSub formerly known as VSFilter is a software add-on for Microsoft Windows that is able to read external subtitle files and superimposes them on a playing video file....
- Embedded subtitles of ASFAdvanced Systems FormatAdvanced Systems Format is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media...
, MKVMatroskaThe Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
, OGM
Codec finder
Another significant feature of GOM Player is that where it can't play the audio or video of a media file natively, it will try to find an appropriate external codecCodec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
which will play that file format, using the format's GUID, a unique identifier for the required codec. On finding a match, it will direct the user to a webpage where the appropriate codec can be downloaded and installed.
GOM TV
GOM TV is a popular streaming service in South Korea, and is responsible for GOM Player's popularity in South Korea. The GOM TV service offers users various video contents ranging from National Geographic documentaries and television dramas to major motion pictures and adult videos.The service mixes both ad-supported and pay-per-view content. Prices range from 500 won
South Korean won
The won is the currency of South Korea. A single won is divided into 100 jeon, the monetary subunit. The jeon is no longer used for everyday transactions, and appears only in foreign exchange rates...
and up (approximately 50 cents U.S.), with most movies available for 2,000 won (approximately US$2).
While the functions are very similar in the English and Korean language versions of GOM Player, the option to watch GOM TV is absent in the English language version.
The GOM Player (up to v2.1.9) allowed American users to connect to the GOM TV StarLeague (a channel of South Korea's GOM TV), to watch the latest matches in South Korea's StarCraft leagues (GOMTV Global Starcraft II League
GOMTV Global Starcraft II League
GOMTV Global Starcraft II League is a StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty tournament hosted by GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment in South Korea. There is an English stream available for non-Korean viewers. The tournament features two leagues, Code S and Code A...
and GOMTV Global Starcraft II Team League
GOMTV Global Starcraft II Team League
GOMTV Global Starcraft II Team League is a StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty tournament hosted by GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment in South Korea. The GSTL focuses on team play to see which is the best team...
). This feature was tested during the GOM TV Star Invitational, which airs each February. Despite this, the GOM television service is still not included in the English language release (so that foreign viewers who wish to watch StarCraft matches must use the StarCraft website to connect to the streaming servers). GOM TV now shows e-sports games of Starcraft and Warcraft, so A.V.A. Users can watch the videos for free or choose to pay a fee to download VODs (Video On Demand).
Popularity in South Korea
GOM Player is South Korea's most popular media player. As of July 2007, it had 8.4 million users, compared to 5.4 million users of Microsoft's Windows Media Player.A survey of usage over a single week by Metrix, an internet survey company, found that 69.8% of users watched pornography, 43.2% watched cinematic movies, 29.6% watched television dramas, 21.8% watched variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
s, 11% watched cartoons, and 7% watched music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s. This is in line with South Korea being the greatest spender per capita on pornography, even though local production of pornography is illegal. Gretech disputes the credibility of this report.
Metrix obtained the survey data from 12,000 internet users who agreed to voluntarily install a monitoring tool. Only file names were used to categorize the media files included in the survey.
Gretech points out that media files played by GOM Player are not monitored, and that only the explicit installation of the Metrix survey software enabled that monitoring to be done.
Allegations of Copyright Infringement
GOM Player is listed in FFmpegFFmpeg
FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
's Hall of Shame, indicating that it is violating FFmpeg's software license terms. While GOM Player has now acknowledged that it uses FFmpeg source code, saying that it is licensed under the LGPL, and has provided some modified FFmpeg source code, according to FFmpeg
FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
's Hall of Shame the GOM Player EULA is still in violation of the LGPL (and possibly the GPL), and insufficient source code has been released.
See also
- List of media players
- Comparison of media playersComparison of media playersThe following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "video players" are defined as any media player which can play video, even if it can also play audio files.-General:-Operating system...
- List of multimedia (audio/video) codecs