XVCD.com - Technical Reference 0 to C

There are a number of terms and abbreviations we come across when dealing with various file formats and multimedia in general. This list is ever growing as newer, better formats or structures are developed, and download speeds and audio and video cards improve by leaps and bounds.

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Glossary of Terms

3ivX	Is a MacIntosh video format based on MPEG-4 which can only be stored as a Quicktime file.
5.1	Is the commonly used abbreviation for surround sound, meaning the audio portion of a program is divided spatially across 5 satellite speakers, and one omni directional bass woofer speaker for sub harmonic frequencies.
AAC	Is a format based on MPEG-2 audio which uses less physical space and produces better audio quality than MPEG-3.
AC3	Dolby Audio Coding Algorithm 3 which selectively remove noise from specific frequency bands.
AFM	Stand for Atomic Force Microscopy, which is used to measure the amount of imperfections on the surface of a CD, or DVD disc.
APS	Stands fo Analogue Protection System. It is a copy protection scheme otherwise referred to as Macrovision which is encoded within the DVD signal so it is impossible for one to copy the program material contained therein.
ASF	Is Microsoft's Advanced Streaming Format for audio and video, and can be encoded with virtually any codec, as the ASF extension merely serves as a structure for the stream.
AOB	Stands for Audio Object, usually a portion of a DVD disc which contains only audio material.
AVI	Means Audio Video Interleave, a video format which is similar to ASF, as it represents the structure in which the audio and video stream are stored.
BCA	Stands for Burst Cutting Area, it is the section of a DVD which is found at the center of a DVD where one finds other information such as bar codes, or copyright notices.
Bit	Stands for Binary Digit. Binary Digits are the zeroes and ones (01) used by all computers to read and store data.
Bit Rate	Is the measurement for the number of bits an audio file will occupy per second, i.e: most Mp3 files are usually encoded at 128kbits per second.
CBR	Stands for Constant Bit Rate, this encoding scheme is used when you wish to attain the most economical file size, it is used with the MPEG-2 format.
CDR	Stand for CD Recordable. CDRs, a.k.a., WORM (Write Once, Read Many) are now available in a variety of lengths and compositions, and can be written to once, or in multiple sessions, but not erased to be rewritten.
cDVD	Is a hacked format where one uses regular CDs to store DVD files. The major disadvantage of this format, also known as MiniDVD is that you need several CDs to fit the contents of a DVD.
CDRW	Stand for CD-Rewriteable disc, they are similar to regular CDRs, but can be erased and rewritten many times over. The disadvantage of this format is its incompatibility with some CD players.
Codec	Stands for compressor/decompressor. a codec removes redundant data from a file, reducing its size, and optimizing its stream, or playback.
CSS	stands for Constant Scrambling System, a copy protection standard which is usually encoded in DVDs. As opposed to APS, which prevents analogue copying of the material, this copy protection scheme operates on the digital level.

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