Cyclops AV (TM) - Smarter Products for Digital Entertainment

Glossary of Useful Terminology

1080i	A High Definition Television (HDTV) format with 1080 lines of vertical resolution. It is interlaced, rather than progressive scan, and typically utilizes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 resulting in a display resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.
480i	A Standard Definition Television format (SDTV) with 480 lines of vertical resolution. It is interlaced, rather than progressive scan, and typically utilizes a full screen aspect ratio of 4:3 resulting in a display resolution of 640 x 480 pixels.
480p	A Television format with 480 lines of vertical resolution. It is progressive scan, rather than interlaced, and typically utilizes a full screen aspect ratio of 4:3 resulting in an SDTV display resolution of 720 x 480 pixels or an HDTV widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 resulting in a display resolution of 854 x 480 pixels.
720p	A High Definition Television (HDTV) format with 720 lines of vertical resolution. It is progressive scan, rather than interlaced, and typically utilizes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 resulting in a display resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels.
AC-3	A six-channel digital audio format also known as Dolby Digital. Allows for one center, two front (L/R), two rear (L/R), and one subwoofer channels. Also known as 5.1 channel surround sound.
AVI	A multimedia container format for both audio and video data. Raw data is compressed into the container and/or extracted from the container by a variety of codecs.
BitTorrent	A peer-to-peer method for sharing files across the internet by which the file is broken into many smaller pieces that are shared amongst multiple participants who are engaged in the sharing swarm.
Component Video	An analog video signal that has been split into two or more components, most commonly utilized as Y'PbPr analog component video. This is typically referring to the red, green and blue color-coded video sockets.
Composite Video	An analog video signal that is not split, but rather is a composite of three source signals called Y, U and V (together referred to as YUV) with sync pulses. The signal is carried on the yellow color-coded video socket.
Digital Video	A type of video recording that works by using a digital, rather than analog representation of the video signal. There are a variety of digital video encoding formats, such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.263, and H.264. The resulting video files can be stored on a variety of digital recording media including DVD discs, CD discs, Blu-ray discs, digital tape, hard discs, and floppy discs.
DivX	A video codec used for compression and decompression of digital video. DivX is typically used with MPEG-4 digital video encoding and AVI container. DivX offers a good balance between video quality and file size.
DLNA	An acronym for Digital Living Network Alliance, which is a group of member companies devoted to the vision of interoperability amongst shared digital media devices on a network. The alliance offers a certification program for verifying UPnP and wireless networking interoperability of items such as media content servers and players. Devices that successfully acquire certification may bear the DLNA Certified Logo.
DVD	A type storage media that offers high density and high capacity. Single layer DVD discs are capable of storing up to 4.7 Gigabytes of data, while dual-layer DVD discs are capable of storing up to 8.5 GB. The discs come in the form of DVD-ROM types that are factory "pressed" with digital data and recordable types that can be "burned" with digital data using optical disc drives.
DVI	A Digital Visual Interface that primarily connects to flat panel LCD computer displays and digital projectors. Most computer video graphics cards offer a DVI output connector.
Field Rate	Applies to an interlaced video image and is twice the effective frame rate, since interlacing draws only half of the image (the odd- or even-numbered lines) at a time. For example, a field rate of 60 Hertz will correspond to a 30 frames-per-second moving picture. A field rate can apply to either a video signal, or to a monitor designed to display that signal without conversion.
FLAC	A "lossless" audio compression codec. FLAC is an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec. FLAC may be use to compress CD audio by as much as 30 - 50 %. As such, it is well suited for archival as well as file sharing purposes.
Frame Rate	The measurement of how quickly an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems. Frame rate is most often expressed in frames per second or simply, hertz (Hz). Also known as frame frequency.
HDMI	An all-digital audio/video interface capable of transmitting uncompressed streams. HDMI provides an interface between a digital audio/video source, such as a set-top box, DVD player, or digital media player and a compatible digital audio/video monitor.
IFO	A DVD InFOrmation file that stores information about Chapters, Subtitles and Audio Tracks.
ISO	A type of "image" file that contains all files and metafile information from an original disc that is archived as a single file. An ISO image file offers a convenient back-up method for physical discs, like DVDs. ISO image files can be "mounted" by most operating systems as if they were physical discs. Suitably equipped media players can also play ISO image files of DVDs.
JPG, JPEG	A "lossy" compression format for photographic images. Most digital cameras and scanners store their output files in this format.
MP3	A "lossy" compression format for audio files. Also known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3.
MPC	An open-source "lossy" compression format for audio files specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160-180 kbit/s. Also known as Musepack, MPEGplus, MPEG+, or MP+.
MPEG-1, MPG	A group of Audio and Video (AV) coding and compression standards agreed upon by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). MPEG-1 video is used by the Video CD (VCD) format and less commonly by the DVD-Video format. The quality at standard VCD resolution and bitrate is roughly that of a VHS tape.
MPEG-2	The second of several standards developed by the Motion Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) and the core of most digital television and DVD formats.
MPEG-4	A standard used primarily to compress audio and visual (AV) digital data for web (streaming media) and CD distribution, conversation (videophone), and broadcast television.
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264	A digital video codec standard that is noted for achieving very high data compression. It is employed widely in applications ranging from television broadcast to video for mobile devices.
NAS	An acronym for Network Attached Storage. A NAS device connects directly to a network (LAN) by Ethernet, wireless, or other communication protocol, rather than being connected to a host computer. NAS devices permit storage of archival, backup, and working files for access by any computer on the network having properly configured access. NAS devices that support UPnP AV can serve media files to media players and other appliances that support UPnP AV.
NTSC	The analog television system in use in Canada, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, the United States, and some other countries, mostly in the Americas (see map). It is named for the National Television System(s) Committee, the U.S. standardization body that adopted it.
OGG	A multimedia bitstream container format designed for efficient streaming and manipulation. The term "ogg" is often refers to audio file format Ogg Vorbis, that is, Vorbis-encoded audio in the Ogg container. Ogg can also be used as a container for video.
PAL	The analog television system in use in large parts of the world. Other common analogue television systems are SECAM and NTSC. Also know as phase-alternating line, phase alternation by line or phase alternation line.
S-Video	An analog video signal that carries the video data as two separate signals (brightness and color), unlike composite video which carries the entire set of signals in one signal line. It does not carry audio on the same cable.
SCART	A 21-pin connector for analog audio/video signals according to the IEC 933-1 standard. SCART is widely used in Europe as an easy way to facilitate interconnections between AV equipment.
TIF, TIFF	A file format for mainly storing images, including photographs and line art. TIFF is a popular format for high color depth images, along with JPEG and PNG.
TOSLINK	A standardized optical fiber connection system that is mainly used to carry digital audio signals for connecting CD players to receivers and amplifiers.
UPnP	An acronym for Universal Plug and Play, UPnP is a set of computer network protocols based on TCP/IP, UDP and HTTP. It is designed to connect network devices in a seamless manner (without need for installing drivers) and to simplify the implementation of networks in the home or corporate environment. With UPnP there is no configuration necessary. Any UPnP device can simply be connected to a network (LAN) and may then communicate with any other UPnP devices that are on the same network.
UPnP AV	A grouping within the UPnP standards that is focused on Audio and Video requirements. Implementation of UPnP AV is supervised by the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance).
UPnP AV MediaServer	A device that stores and shares media files such as movies, music, and photographs across a network (LAN). It may be software based, in which case the host computer becomes the UPnP AV MediaServer, or it may be a separate appliance that is connected directly to the network (typically a NAS device).
VOB	A container format file used for DVD-Video media. It contains the actual Video, Audio, Subtitle (VobSubs) and Menu contents in stream form.
WAV	An audio file format for storing audio on PCs, most commonly, uncompressed audio in the pulse-code modulation (PCM) format. PCM audio is the standard audio file format for CDs at 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. WAV format offers maximum audio quality.
WMA	A proprietary compressed audio file format developed by Microsoft, also known as Windows Media Audio. It was initially intended to be a competitor to the popular MP3 format.
Xvid	An open-source, competing video codec to DivX, used for compression and decompression of digital video following the MPEG-4 standard. Video encoded with Xvid is MPEG-4 ASP video and can therefore be decoded with all MPEG-4 ASP compliant decoders. Xvid encoded files can be played by a DivX compatible media player, however, results can vary depending on the encoding features utilized.