Glossary of Techno-Terms
Algorithm
The formulas or logical process that computer software uses to convert and modify data in a program.
Aliasing
Distortion in a video image. In analog video, this is caused by interference between different signal frequencies; in digital video, it’s caused by poor sampling in the digitizing process. On the screen, the result is that angled lines look jagged. Anti-Aliasing is the process of smoothing out those jagged lines.
A signal that varies continuously in a wave form, as opposed to digital where the signal varies in discrete amounts.
Synonymous with hyperlinks, anchor refers to non-linear links among documents. Or more simply put, it's the word or phrase that can be selected to connect to another spot on a page or even another page or resource.
Animation
A moving image that’s drawn or created in your computer, rather than captured live in a camera.
Artifacts
Defects in the video signal, usually caused by compression errors.
(pronounced "Ask-ee") An acronym for American Standard Code for Information Exchange, ASCII is an international standard in which numbers, letters, punctuation marks, symbols and control codes are assigned numbers from 0 to 127. Easily transferred over networks, ASCII is a plain, unadorned text without style or font specifications.
The ratio of a screen’s width to height. In standard television, this is 4:3; in widescreen, it’s usually 16:9.
The type of connection a modem makes over a phone line, this connection is not synchronized by a mutual timing signal or clock.
Audio Tracks (or channels)
The sound channels that accompany your image. Most camcorders record two tracks of sound; some can record four. When editing, your editing software will let you manipulate the audio tracks. Depending on the software, you can use anywhere from two channels of sound to as many as 100 when editing.
This term refers to software that enables the creation of multimedia or hypertext documents and presentations.
AVI (Audio Video Interleave)
Microsoft’s format for digital audio and video files.
Refers to the amount of information that can be transmitted over a particular line, wire, or method of linking communication devices. It is the range of transmission frequencies a network can use. The greater the bandwidth the more information that can be transferred over that network at one time. Therefore, the term bandwidth broadly includes throughput, meaning the amount of data sent.
A unit of speed in data transmission, or the maximum speed at which data can be sent down a channel. Baud is often equivalent to bits per second. Named after J. M. E. Baudot (died 1903).
A contraction of binary digit, a bit is the smallest unit of information that a computer can hold. Eight bits is equivalent to a byte. The speed at which bits are transmitted or bit rate is usually expressed as bits per second or bps.
Simply put: A fast connection for computer communications (like Cable or DSL).
Less Simply: A transmission method in which the networks range of transmission frequencies is divided into separate channels and each channel is used to send a different signal. Broadband is often used to send different types of signals simultaneously.
Examples: Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.
A type of software that allows you to navigate information databases.
The number of bits (8) used to represent a character. A group of data bits that are processed together. A single frame of uncompressed video requires about 1 megabyte of storage space.
The process of feeding video from your camcorder into the computer. If you have a digital camera, you probably connect through an IEEE 1394 or FireWire connection. If you have an older analog camera (VHS or Hi-8), you’ll need a video capture card in your computer that will convert your analog video into digital video for editing.
CCD (Charge-Coupled Device)
An electronic chip that samples an analog signal, i.e., it’s the widget that captures the pictures in a digital camera.
Compact Disk-Read Only Memory; an optical disk from which information may be read but not written.
CD-R or Compact Disk-Recordable
Refers to computer peripheral disk drives that allow the user to record content on to a blank compact disk.
The process of layering one video signal over another, but only on a specific color; also called blue screen or green screen, depending on the color being replaced. This is the process that lets your local TV weather-person stand in front of weather maps and satellite images.
Chrominance (or Chroma)
The color portion of a video signal.
A video compression algorithm often used on CD-ROMS.
A computer that has access to services over a computer network. The computer providing the services is a server.
An information-passing scheme that works as follows: a client program, such as Netscape, sends a request to a server. The server takes the request, disconnects from the client and processes the request. When the request is processed, the server reconnects to the client program and the information is transferred to the client. This architecture differs from traditional Internet databases where the client connects to the server and runs the program from the remote site.
1) In keying, the trigger point or threshold at which the key signal takes place; 2) A specific segment of video that’s used in an edit.
Clip Sheet (Clip Bin)
The location of video clips in your desktop editing system.
Codec (Coder/DECoder)
The thing that converts analog signals to digital and vice versa.
Fixing the color in a video clip; for example, if the exposure was off when shooting and skin tones had a green tint to them.
The process of reducing the size of a data file, usually accomplished through software processing. Compressed files save storage space and reduce transmission times.
The percentage of compression of the original data file. The larger the compression ratio, the more information that’s lost during the compression and decompression steps.
This is a general-purpose computer term that can refer to the way you have your computer set up. It is also used to describe the total combination of hardware components that make up a computer system and the software settings that allow various hardware components of a computer system to communicate with one another.
The instantaneous transition from one clip to another.
Digital to Analog Converter.
DHTML
Dynamic HyperText Markup Language is the language used to create “Dynamic” Web sites that enable various effects to display, like page transitions (e.g. dissolves), animations, and other special effects.
The most popular form of Net connection for the home user, this is a connection from your computer to a host computer over standard telephone lines.
A recording process that captures each image frame as binary data.
A permanent connection between your computer system and the Internet. This is sometimes referred to as a leased-line connection because the line is leased from the telephone company.
A gradual transition where one clip blends into the next. Dissolve rates from a half-second to two seconds are most common.
An acronym for Domain Name Server, DNS refers to a database of Internet names and addresses which translates the names to the official Internet Protocol numbers and vice versa.
To transfer to your computer a copy of a file that resides on another computer.
Drag/Drag & Drop
“Drag” means holding the left mouse button down WHILE moving the mouse. “Drop” means letting go of the mouse button.
The digital VCR format.
DVD
(Digital Versatile Disk) A high-density version of the original compact disk. It holds seven times more information on a side, about 4.38 gigabytes.
A program used for presenting graphics, audio and video files. Programs that allow the viewing of GIF and JPEG files and the hearing of AU files fall into this category.
Fade In (or fade up)
A transition from a blank screen to an image.
Fade Out (or fade down or fade to black)
A transition from an image to a blank (usually black) screen.
This is the acronym for Frequently Asked Questions. A common feature on the Internet, FAQs are files of answers to commonly asked questions. Read FAQs before wasting electrons asking obvious questions. Saves you from receiving flames.
This term refers to security measures (like a wall, boundary, fence, gate, etc.) designed to protect a networked system from unauthorized or unwelcome access.
FireWire or IEEE 1394
A high speed, low cost digital interface, used for capturing video and other data directly into a computer.
One full screen of video. In broadcast television, each frame is made of two interlaced fields. The first field contains all the odd-numbered lines and the second field contains all even-numbered lines.
Broadcast Television (NTSC in the US) has 30 frames per second. Most modern computers are powerful enough to run video at this rate. However, you may choose to use a slower rate (15 or 10 frames per second) if you’re tight on storage space, or if you want your video to more easily stream down the Internet. Computer graphics may use frame rates as high as 100 frames per second.
This term refers to software that is available totally for free on public networks and BBSs. Sometimes there are minor restrictions like not altering the program if you give it away, etc.
File Transfer Protocol is a protocol that allows the transfer of files from one computer to another. FTP is also the verb used to describe the act of transferring files from one computer to another.
This acronym stands for Graphics Interchange Format, a commonly used file compression format developed by CompuServe for transferring graphics files to and from online services. Its use was implemented to allow one format to work on many different platforms or operating systems.
An acronym for Graphical User Interface, this term refers to a software front-end meant to provide an attractive and easy to use interface between a computer user and a computer program or application. The Macintosh and Windows operating systems have a GUI, DOS does not.
The document displayed when you first open your Web browser (which you may change in your preferences file). Home Page can also refer to the first document you come to at a Web site.
A computer acting as an information or communications server.
An acronym for Hyper-Text Markup Language, HTML is the language used to tag various parts of a Web document so browsing software will know how to display that document's links, text, graphics and attached media.
A document written in Hyper-Text Markup Language.
The abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP is used to link and transfer hypertext documents.
The hypertext concept extended to include linked multiple media.
Refers to the highlighted text in Web documents or computer programs that allows documents to be cross- linked in such a way that the reader can explore related documents by clicking on that highlighted word or symbol.
IEEE 1394 (or FireWire)
A high speed, low cost digital interface, used for capturing video and other data directly into a computer.
These are the graphics contained within a Web document.
I/O (Input/Output)
Sending signals to and from a device.
The abbreviation for Internet Protocol, IP refers to the set of communication
standards that control communications activity on the Internet. An IP address
is the number assigned to any Internet-connected computer.
ISDN
The abbreviation for Integrated Services Digital Network, ISDN is a telecommunications standard that uses digital transmission technology to support voice, video and data communications applications over regular telephone lines.
The acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group, JPEG is an image compression format used to transfer color photographs and images over computer networks. Along with GIF, it's one of the most common ways photos are moved over the Web.
These are the hypertext connections between Web pages. This is a synonym for hotlinks or hyperlinks.
A compression that returns all the original data when uncompressed.
Compression algorithms that throw out insignificant data in the compression process.
A blank graphic that covers a portion of the screen to allow another image to show through.
The process of using an electronic mask to cover part of a video image and replace it with another image.
The acronym for Moving Pictures Expert Group, MPEG is an international standard for video compression and desktop movie presentation. MPEG achieves a high compression rate by storing only the changes from one frame to another, instead of each entire frame. A special viewing application is needed to run MPEG files on your computer like Windows Media Player or Real Player (both available free). MPEG-1 standard provides a video resolution of 352 X 240 at 30 frames per second (fps). This produces video quality slightly below the quality of a home VHS videotape. MPEG-2 (used by DVDs) offers resolutions of 720 X 480 at 60 fps, with full CD-quality audio. This is sufficient for all the major TV standards, including NTSC and new high definition television. MP3 is a format for high quality audio compression.
Editing systems where any piece of video is available almost instantly without having to run through it in real time, and that can be easily assembled in any order.
A device attached to a network. A node uses the network as a means of communication and has an address on the network.
The National Television Standards Committee is the group formed by the FCC to set the technical specifications for broadcast television. NTSC also refers to U.S. television standards; 525 scan lines interlaced at 60 fields, making 30 frames per second.
(Picture Element) The smallest dot that’s used to build an image on the screen. In digital, a pixel contains data for its position, intensity and color on the screen.
A set of standards that define how traffic and communications are handled by a computer or network routers.
This is a digital video standard originally developed for Apple Macintosh computers and available on Windows computers as well. Special viewing applications are needed to run QuickTime movies like the Quicktime player available at http://www.apple.com (for both Mac’s & PC’s).
This is the most popular cross-platform digital video standard. Real Networks (www.real.com) makes and distributes many free applications for streaming video on the web, including viewing, digitizing and server programs.
In video editing, manipulation of the signal that takes place as the video plays.
A communications device designed to transmit signals via the most efficient route possible.
This term refers to a program that helps users find information in text-oriented databases
.
A computer system that manages and
delivers information for client computers. Note: in an X-11 environment, the
meanings of client and server are reversed.
The abbreviation for Standard Generalized Markup Language, SGML is an international standard for the publication and delivery of electronic information.
This term refers to software that is available on public networks and BBSs. Users are asked to remit a small amount to the software developer if they continue to use the program.
Sizing Handles
Sometimes called “sizing squares,” are the little squares or diamonds that appear at the edge of an item when you select it in paint programs and others which allow you to resize or change the size or proportions of graphics and photos.
The acronym for Serial Line Internet Protocol, SLIP refers to a method of Internet connection that enables computers to use phone lines and a modem to connect to the Internet without having to connect to a host.
Streaming
Either “live” or “archived,” refers to the transmission of audio, video, or both over the Internet. There are a number of different (some proprietary) methods of “streaming” but all basically differ from downloading and then playing a file in that one views (or hears) the files as it comes into the computer. One does not have to wait till it is fully downloaded before one can enjoy the contents of the file. The most popular streaming formats include: Real, Quicktime, and Microsoft’s Media Player.
Improving the quality of a soundtrack, both by electronic filtering and by adding music, sound effects, narration, etc.
An analog to analog or digital to digital connection that is able to perform two or more processes at the same time by means of a mutual timing signal or clock.
High-speed data line connection. T-1 operates at 1.45 Mbps.
These are formatting codes used in
HTML documents. Tags indicate how parts of a document will appear when
displayed by browsing software. E.g.
“<B>Bold</B> would make the word between the two tags, “Bold.”
The basic protocols controlling applications on the Internet; it stands for "Transfer control protocol/Internet protocol."
(or story line) 1) The sequence of clips you put together when you’re editing; 2) In editing software, the graphic representation of the assembled audio and video clips.
This is what we call the address of a Web site. It (URL) is the abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator, the addressing system used in the World Wide Web and other Internet resources. The URL contains information about the method of access, the server to be accessed and the path of any file to be accessed.
This is the
software that allows a user to access and view HTML documents. Examples of Web
browsers include Netscape, Internet Explorer, Mosaic, etc.
An HTML document that is browsable on the Web.
This term refers to the person in charge of administrating a World Wide Web site.
An HTML document that is accessible on the Web.
This term refers to the space created by the World Wide Web.
Also known as WWW or W3, the World Wide Web is a hypertext- based Internet service used for browsing Internet resources.