It not only burns music (or data) onto CD-ROM's but can also play MP3 files and act as a stand-alone player for commercial CD's.

For the moment, however, the machines, which arrived in stores this month, must survive as stand-alone video-game players.

Panasonic also has three new stand-alone players and one portable Blu-ray player that supports the technology.

HighMAT allows these stand-alone players to read lists of images and music content from the media faster, as well as providing a more convenient navigation system.

Over the years, the NSF format has been implemented for playback on many platforms via plugins, stand-alone players, emulators and also the NES PowerPak.

That's because the new game machines from Sony and Microsoft will play high-definition DVD's and may spur discs sales far faster than stand-alone players.

Entry-level prices for such stand-alone players are well under $200.

However, with newer stand-alone players supporting more complex formats such as VC-1 and H.264, Qpel support in MPEG-4 ASP has become more common.

VLC media player (stand-alone player, available on every major platform)

The decoder is a stand-alone player or a plugin that works as part of a Web browser.