"Amorphous Silicon"

Adaptive transform Coder 3, the bitstream designation of Dolby Digital. A variable, lossy audio compression method using perceptual coding to drop sound data you cannot hear. It can be used to deliver from 1 to 5.1 tracks of audio along with metadata on how best to play back a particular recording on a particular system. The '.1' track is a low frequency effects (LFE) track limited to 120 Hz. Metadata can offer control information on down-mixing, dynamic range and level normalization as well as informational data such as artist, copyright etc. The proper ATSC designation is presently A/52A. Encodes audio sampled at 32KHz, 44.1KHz and 48KHz into 32Kbps to 640Kbps data streams. Compression varies with quality with an average of 12:1.

A common type of LCD used in laptops, cameras, and LCD projection panels that were produced in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Another name for it is thin-film transistor (TFT). A typical active matrix TFT display is a single panel of LCD glass that controls all three primary colors. TFT displays are noted for their quick response time and their ability to display full motion video and animations without image ghosting.

Audio Engineering Society/European Broadcasting Union. Three pin XLR type connector used to send digital audio.

Auto Gain Control. A feature typically for VCRs that adjust incoming video levels to reasonable levels. Video copy protection routines fool this component into thinking the incoming video is too 'hot' which therefore causes the video to be extremely dim, sometimes to the point where you can’t see anything.

Amplitude Modulation (AM) is a method of transmitting information using varying signal levels on a non-varying carrier signal. The waveform of the information being sent exists in the difference of signal level between the peak of the first carrier wave to the peak of the next carrier wave and so on.

A movie industry term for the potential to create high quality copies of copy protected digital content by digitizing the analog output that is unprotected. Digital streams can be copy protected using encryption whereas analog signals cannot.

A technique for changing aspect ratios by optically or digitally stretching or compressing an image to or from a format with a different native aspect ratio. Movie studios used this technique to put the first widescreen movies on standard 35mm film and then used an anamorphic lens to recreate the image in the widescreen format in which it was originally shot.

An anamorphic lens is a lens that has different optical magnification along mutually perpendicular radii. This provides the ability to project a source image of one aspect ratio, such as 4:3, into a different aspect ratio, such as 16:9, by using different magnifications for the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of the projected image.

American National Standards Institute. A private organization that coordinates and administers various voluntary consensus standards such as ANSI lumens. The first ANSI standard was for pipe threading in 1919 when it was called the American Engineering Standards Committee.

Contrast is the ratio between white and black. The larger the contrast ratio the greater the ability of a projector to show subtle color details and tolerate extraneous room light. There are two methods used by the projection industry: 1) Full On/Off contrast measures the ratio of the light output of an all white image (full on) and the light output of an all black (full off) image. 2) ANSI contrast is measured with a pattern of 16 alternating black and white rectangles. The average light output from the white rectangles is divided by the average light output of the black rectangles to determine the ANSI contrast ratio. When comparing the contrast ratio of projectors make sure you are comparing the same type of contrast. Full On/Off contrast will always be a larger number than ANSI contrast for the same projector.

ANSI lumens is a measurement of the overall brightness of a projector. Because the center of a projected image is brighter than the corners, ANSI lumens is the most accurate representation of the image brightness. ANSI lumens are calculated by dividing a square meter image into 9 equal rectangles, measuring the lux (or brightness) reading at the center of each rectangle, and averaging these nine points.

A device that controls amount of light admitted.

Compensation for the loss in sharpness of detail because of the finite dimensions of the image elements or the dot-pitch of the monitor.

A set of vertical wires to mask the electron guns in a CRT to ensure the beams hit their respective color phosphors. One or two horizontal stabilizing wires are used for spacing, which can be usually seen on the monitor. Monitors using this technique are usually flatter than their shadow mask counterparts. This technique was originally patented by Sony and marketed under the Trinitron name, which has since expired.

Stray pixels and other aberrations that don’t belong in an image.

The ratio of image width to image height. Standard television is 4:3 or 1.33:1. Panavision or Cinemascope is 2.35:1 with 1.85:1 being quite common as well. Widescreen displays are 1.78:1 or 16:9.times the height. For example, if you want an image 40 inches high then you need a screen that is at least 40 * 1.78 inches wide or 71 inches. Other relatively common aspect ratios are 3:2, 4:3 and 5:4.

A case rated strong enough to be shipped by common carrier; freight lines, UPS, FedEx, etc. Most cases of this type are easily recognized by their metal reinforced corners and handles. These cases are often referred to as 'Anvil cases'.

Advanced Television Research Consortium. An industry group composed of RCA, Sarnoff Labs, Philips and NBC, banded together in 1990 to develop digital HDTV technologies. Sarnoff designed the transport layer for the presently used MPEG 2 bitstream, which is a way to reduce errors, and Philips designed the HDTV decoders for the present ATSC standard.

Advanced Television Systems Committee. Formed in 1982, this international committee develops voluntary standards for terrestrial digital television. Countries adhering to its standards include Canada, Argentina, Mexico, South Korea and the U.S.A. ATSC Digital TV Standards include HDTV, SDTV, data broadcasting, multichannel surround audio, and interactive television.

To reduce. Turning the volume down on your television set is attenuating it.

A system for detecting errors in color balance in white and black areas of the picture and automatically adjusting the white and black levels of both the red and blue signals as needed for correction.

Audio/Video Interleave. The file format for Video for Windows (VfW). Used in conjunction with a codec to play back video. Format dictates how video and audio are stored in relation to each other but not the particular compression scheme used, which is handled by the codec.

The direction to point a satellite dish when coupled with altitude. Due north has an azimuth of 0 degrees and due east, 90 degrees and so on.