<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Overview</title>

<para>&kplayer; is a multimedia player for the K Desktop Environment.</para>

<para>&kplayer; uses <ulink url="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/">&mplayer;</ulink> as
the media playing backend, and therefore offers the best playback quality and
performance and the widest variety of supported video, audio and subtitle
formats, input methods and output options. Specifically, &mplayer; supports
<link linkend="playing">playing</link> from local files,
<acronym>DVD</acronym>s, video <acronym>CD</acronym>s, audio
<acronym>CD</acronym>s, <acronym>TV</acronym> and <acronym>DVB</acronym> cards,
as well as network locations using many types of protocols.</para>

<para>However, &kplayer; is much more that just an &mplayer; frontend. In
addition to &kde; integration and an easy to use interface that follows &kde;
standards, it offers a simple but full featured
<link linkend="howto-playlist">playlist</link>, many additional input methods
using <link linkend="howto-slaves">&kde; I/O Slaves</link>, and last but not
least the <link linkend="howto-properties">ability</link> to easily choose many
different options for each individual file or <acronym>URL</acronym>, giving you
flexibility not found in any other media player.</para>

<para>&kplayer; is a fully customizable program that you can
<link linkend="configuration">configure</link> and fine tune for your system and
your personal preferences, from changing the way video is shown and sound is
played and setting any playback option &mplayer; understands to arranging the
player controls inside &kplayer; window, changing the number and positions of
toolbars and defining new shortcut key combinations.</para>

</chapter>