QuickPlay is a technology pioneered by

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

that allows users to directly play multimedia without

booting In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via hardware such as a button or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in its main memory, so som ...

a computer to the main

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. QuickPlay software, known as QuickPlay or HP QuickPlay is software custom developed for HP by CyberLink Corp. A media component of

HP Pavilion HP Pavilion is a line of consumer-oriented laptop and desktop computers produced by HP Inc. It was introduced in 1995 by Hewlett-Packard. The name is applied to both desktops and laptops for the Home and Home Office product range. The Pavilion ...

Entertainment

laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

s, 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 Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

Alienware Alienware is an American computer hardware subsidiary of Dell. Their product range is dedicated to gaming computers which can be identified by their alien-themed designs. Alienware was founded in 1996 by Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila, and is ...

, and

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

in various iterations. 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 The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

movies, and

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

s stored on the

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

. 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. QuickPlay software versions 3.0 and newer included in notebooks shipping with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, 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 HP QuickPlay should not be confused with the QuickPlay project hosted by sourceforge.net.

External links

Official HP QuickPlay support page

Backup QuickPlay files & Info at Asifism.com
HP software Media players {{multimedia-software-stub