Gobbledegook. Nomenclature. Technobabble. Call it what you will, our industry’s full of odd phrases... So DMI has a new objective. Its mission? To explore strange new words. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before...

AC-3 Audio Compression technology; see Dolby Digital

Aggregating Websites: Sites that collect syndicated content for easy viewing. They usually specialize in news headlines, blogs or video.

AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format): This is an audio format originally developed to store high-quality audio data. AIFF files are similar to Windows WAVE files interms of size/quality and can hold CD quality audio which can be burned onto audio CDs. As a rule, Mac and PC Audio programs are both able to read the files.

Aliasing: A sort of ‘visual confusion’, often caused by sampling images at too low a resolution. If you’ve ever seen someone on TV in a checked jacket that kind of ‘strobes’, you’ll get the idea. If the thing being shot has a lot of tiny, repetitive detail, it causes poor pixelation and looks just plain wrong!

Analogue (Analog): Our senses perceive the world in analogue in as much that the things we see and hear are transmitted in a continuous stream. That’s a bit like analogue data! So, for example, a turntable uses a needle to read bumps and grooves on a record in a continuous signal – so it’s an analogue device…

A CD player, however, uses a laser to read only a series of one and zero digits –it’s digital! And because digital devices only read these ones and zeros, they kind of approximate an audio or video signal… That means analogue data is technicallymore accurate than digital data! When it comes down to it though, digital data wins out ’cos it can be handled by computers and is more easily manipulated and preserved.

Analogue audio (Analog audio): See Analogue

Analytics: Some say this is best described as "The science of analysis". So webanalytics is the measurement, aggregation, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.

Anamorphic: Shock! Horror! Standard definition television doesn’t have true 16:9 ratios. To achieve the illusion that it does, it uses anamorphic images where the camera lens s – t – r – e – t – c – h – e – s the 16:9 image to fill up a 4:3 image! On a 4:3 – kind of squarish – T.V., the image is then ‘letterboxed’ at the top and bottom to give its original shape. On a 16:9 set, the image is stretched out left & right to restore its shape. See our piccies below!

Applets: Any small program written in the web programming language ‘Java’. It can be put into a HTML page, in the same way images are included.

Aspect Ratio: Confusing business, this, so if you need more info call us on 01784 42 12 12… The aspect ratio of an image is its displayed width divided by its height. This is usually referred to as "x:y" or "x by y". The most popular standard ratios are:

4:316:91.85:12.35:1

4:3 (1.33:1)

16:9 (1.78:1)

Audible Edit: This is tricky to explain! Try and imagine it: sometimes when you edit a picture, the accompanying audio differs between the two shots and you can hear the transition! Exactly the kind of thing a sound engineer puts right.

Audio Dropout: A brief loss of sound.

Audio Hiss, Crackle and Hum: The breakfast of the Sound Engineer? Indeed not. Rather, these onomatopoeic terms speak to unwanted noises in audio work. Also quite common are pops, static, scratches clicks and ticks.

Audio Flutter: A distortion in sound often caused by variations in speed during recording.

Audio Wow: Slow form of ‘audio flutter’. It’s common to hear the phrase ‘Wow and flutter’ in general terms, as things to be avoided or, if they have not been avoided, as things to be got rid of. And if they can’t be got rid of, regretted!

AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition): A high-definition recording format that can use various storage media, including 8cm recordable DVD discs, a hard disk, or flash memory cards. AVCHD competes with other handheld video camera formats, notably HDV and MiniDV.

AVI (Audio Video Interleave): A multimedia format containing both audio and video data in a standard file, allowing synchronous audio-with-video playback. AVI can also support multiple streaming audio and video in much the same way as a shiny,happy DVD can.

Augmented Reality: A view of a live, physical environment, elements of which are mixed with computer-generated imagery… That is to say ‘augmenting reality’!

Bandwidth: Refers to how much data you can send through a network or modem connection. The more bandwidth, the more information can be transferred within a given amount of time. It’s usually measured in bits per second, or bps. See alsobitrate.

Badge (Web badge): An image on a website that promotes digital standards or a content license.

Barker Reel: “Who dares read on and lift the veil of mystery? Who will be the first to discover the secret and reveal the meaning of the words barker reel?” In much the same way a Fairground Barker attracts a crowd with a compelling and enthused pitch, a barker reel is a video piece that compels emotion, often for a forthcoming occurrence or event.

Betacam: A family of half-inch professional videotape products, including camcorders, tapes, video recorders and the like. Rather helpfully, Betacam’s various incarnations - Betacam SP, Betacam SX, Digital Betacam, etc., areconsistent in size and shape, whilst the cassette shells and cases are colour codedfor easy identification! There are two sizes, Small and Large, and ’cos they never change, you never need to upgrade your storage area!

Betacam SP: An analogue tape which was the broadcast industry standard and is still popular in many parts of the world. The difference between BetaCam and theimproved BetaCam SP is that BetaCam SP uses a metal tape. Which is nice…

Betacam SX: Digital version of Betacam SP; a cheaper alternative to Digital Betacam. It stores video using MPEG 4:2:2 Profile@MLcompression, along with 4 channels of 48 kHz 16 bit PCM audio. All Betacam SX equipment is compatible with Betacam SP tapes. Yay! S tapes have a recording time of up to 62 minutes, and L tapes up to 194 minutes.

Betamax: Ah, yes… Remember Betamax? Sony's 12.7 millimetre home videocassette was introduced in 1975 and quickly began battling for domestic supremacy… Not in a Megatron/Optimus Prime sort of way, just for – like – sales, and as you probably recall, VHS won.

BITC (Burnt-In Time Code): An on-screen timecode for a piece of material superimposed on a video image. BITC is sometimes used in conjunction with machine-readable timecodes, such as LTC or VITC. Non-broadcast formats such as VHS tend to employ BITC so that copies can be traced back to a master and the original time codes located more easily.

Right: Colour bars with burnt-in timecode

Bitmap: Most images you see on your computer are composed of bitmaps. A bitmap is a matrix formed of rows and columns of dots that look like a picture as long you are sitting a reasonable distance from the screen. There are many bitmapped formats, including JPEG, GIF, BMP and TIFF.

Bitrate: A measure of bits per second; refers to the rate that data is transmitted. In general, the higher the bitrate the better the image but the longer it’s likely to take to transfer. For that reason the internet uses lower bitrates than DVD for video playback.

BitTorrent: Got to distribute a large amount of data? Then this peer-to-peer file sharing protocol may just be the beast you’re looking for! It’s also the name for the software and the company that maintains it.

Bling: Microsoft’s new search engine and pretender to Google’s throne!

Blog: An abbreviation of ‘Web-log’… A website or page that regularly updates with a user’s comments and, sometimes, graphics or video. Entries tend to be presented in reverse order; ‘Blog’ is also a verb, meaning to provide a blog.

Bluescreen: See Chroma key

Blu-ray DVD: An optical disc like CD and DVD. Developed for recording and playing back high-definition (HD) video, and for storing larger amounts of data. Whilst CDs and DVDs hold 700Megabytes and 4.7 Gigabytes of data respectively, a single layer Blu-ray disc will store up to 25 Gigabytes. Course, since they’re also available as double layer discs, you can store an impressive 50GB on one!

Blu-ray discs can hold more information because of the lasers they use. These ‘blue rays’ (see what they did there?) have shorter wavelengths than the red ones, and focus on a smaller area, therefore using less space. See also HD/DVD and the ‘What’s HD all about?’ info sheet at www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info for more on this.

Blag: Air of false confidence created in a vacuum of true knowledge; particularly common in media industry pitching. For blag free consultations, visit:www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info or call 01784 42 12 12.

.BMP or .DIB: (Device-Independent Bitmap) Bitmapped graphics format used internally by the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 graphics subsystem; often employedas a graphics file format on those platforms. A 32-bit version, with integrated alpha channel, was introduced with Windows XP and is used within its logon and theme system.

B-roll (or B roll): Usually refers to unneeded or unrelated talk during an interview that can be edited around, removed or contextually altered. So coughs, ums, ers and slip-ups, etc, can all be disguised by the B-roll footage.

B-roll also refers to footage given to broadcast news folk as a means of gaining publicity. For instance, someone who runs a factory making jelly tots might film their machines, hoping that excerpts of this be used in stories about the new colours, flavours or shapes. This material often ends up in stock footage libraries.

B-roll, irritatingly, has yet another meaning in an Edit Decision List (EDL). Because linear editing systems are unable to dissolve between clips on the same tape, the EDL marks stuff that needs dubbing onto another tape as ‘B-roll’ to make the dissolve possible.

Burnt-In Time Code: See BITC

Capture: See Digitising

Captioning: Very simply: putting captions on!

Chav: Slang term for a young yob derived either from the Romani word ‘Chavi’, meaning a child or – unfairly, perhaps – created as an acronym for Council Housed And Violent. The chav is widely considered somewhat unintelligent and illiterate, with a proclivity toward the pugnacious.

Chroma key: Also known as colour keying, Greenscreen, Bluescreen or colour-separation overlay (CSO). A brilliant and endlessly useful technique that allows the removal of a colour, or colour range, from images to reveals other images 'behind' them. This makes all sorts of visual effects wizardry possible! Have a shufty at the piccies below to see what we’re on about.

Here: Will Robson stands by the Green Screen

There: Now Isolated; The Background is ‘taken out’

Anywhere!Will appears in a graphic against atotally new background.

Codec: If it’s a technology for encoding or decoding a digital data stream/signal –it’s a codec! Bit of a balderdash and piffle moment as regards where the word comes from: it’s a hybrid of ‘Coder-Decoder'.

Colour Bars: You remember the old test card with the youngster playing noughts and crosses with a hideous clown? Well, colour bars are a type of television test card. The components of this pattern are standardised, so comparing stuff to it indicates how various standards of video signal have been altered and what needs to be happen to make it look right. They’re also used for setting television monitors properly.

Colour-Separation Overlay (CSO): See Chroma key.

Companding (Compansion): From ‘compressing’ and ‘expanding’ comes this rather silly word for a way to minimize the detrimental effects of channels with limited dynamic range.

Compression: Data compression is the process of encoding information using fewer bits to make a smaller file size. For example, this glossary could be encoded with fewer bits if we accepted that the word ‘glossary’ would be encoded as ‘gloss’.

Compression uses less of the expensive resources like hard disk space or transmission bandwidth. The design of data compression schemes involvessomething of a balancing act between factors, including the amount of distortion introduced, the degree of compression, and the computational resources required to compress and uncompress the data.

MPEG, WMV, QUICKTIME, REAL all use compression in video to make the content easier to distribute. Check out the deliverables fact sheet at www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info

Component video: Video signal that’s been split into two or more components. In popular use, it refers to a type of analogue video information that’s transmitted or stored as three separate signals. Component video can be contrasted with composite video in which all the video information is combined into a single line level signal.

CRT (Cathode Ray Tube): CRT is the technology used in older computer monitors and televisions. Images are created by firing electrons from the back of the tube to phosphors toward the front of the display. These then light up and are projected on the screen! Of course, many LCD displays now approximate the quality of CRT monitors, so flat screen displays are increasingly popular...

CSO (Colour-Separation Overlay): See Chroma key.

Click Through Rate (CTR): Often, folk want to measure the success of websites or online advertising campaigns. This is done in part by working out the ‘CTR’. Simply divide the number of people who click the ad by the number of times it’s been delivered. So a ‘banner ad’ that’s delivered 100 times, and has just one solitary person click on it, has a CTR of… 1%!

CMS (Content Management System): A system that lets groups of people maintain websites and the like, using a simple web-browser-based interface, rather than authoring web pages manually.

Cookie (HTTP Cookie): Text stored in your computer memory by a web browser. It’s usually bits of info such as your preferences, shopping cart contents or other data useful to websites.

Cybersquatting: Ummm-err! This is naughty; it’s using a domain name that includes a trademark belonging to someone else. So if we owned www.dietcoke.com and were looking to sell it for millions of pounds… We would be cybersquatting. And shame on us!

D-Beta: See Digital Betacam

D-1: Regarded as the first major professional digital video format, and plagued with appropriate troubles, not least of which was its expense! Once on an even keel, though, D-1 offered exceptional image quality. And, coincidently, its name brings back bad memories of poor Geography grades...

D-2: Not ‘D2: The Mighty Ducks’, but D-2, a composite digital tape introduced to TV broadcasters with the realisation it could be introduced to studio facilities without a great deal of redesigning. The D-2 transport accepted standard RS-170A analogueinputs and outputs.

D-3: Uncompressed composite digital video tape format employing half-inch metal particle tape. It’s been used in data applications and there was a time when some camcorders used the format on account of the lossless encoding scheme.

D-5: Uncompressed digital component video system that uses half-inch tape.Whilst a standard definition D-5 deck can be engineered to record high definition alongside an external HD input/output box, it leaves no room for error ’cos the full bandwidth of the tape is required for the HD recording.

D-5 HD: Uses standard D-5 video tape cassettes to record HD material, using an intra-frame compression with a 4:1 ratio. D-5 HD supports the 1080 and the 1035 interlaced line standards at both 60 Hz and 59.94 Hz field rates, all 720 progressive line standards and the 1080 progressive line standard at 24, 25 and 30 frame rates. Four 48 kHz 20 bit PCM audio channels, or eight 48 kHz 24 bit channels, are also supported.

A D-1(Left) and D-2 Player (Right)

A D-3 Tape (Right)A D-5 Tape (Below Left)And D-5 HD Tape (Below Right)

DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter): This is used to convert analogue information into a digital signal that can be recognised by computers.

DAT (Digital Audio Tape, R-DAT): A signal recording and playback medium that looks a lot like a small audio cassette and, as you might imagine, is digital rather than analogue. Converts and records either at the same, higher or lower sampling rates than a CD, and without compressing the data. Fancy that!

Data Rate Transfer: This measures how fast data is transferred, usually in bits per second – not bytes per second! Look out for Internet service providers: they like to quote data transfer rates in “bps” so people assume bytes when they mean bits… making their access speeds sound 8x faster than they are!

Dbc: See Digital Betacam

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service Attack): Sounds exciting! It’s the term usedwhen ne’er do wells flood the bandwidth, or other resources, of a targeted system – often web servers.

Decoding: See Encoding

Delicious: Yum! A scrumptious social bookmarking web service! Delicious lets you store, share and discover web bookmarks and favourites.

Digital 8: A digital video recorded on Hi8 media, using the industry standard DV codec. In engineering terms, Digital8 and MiniDV are indistinguishable at the logical format level. Digital8 uses the same cassettes as Video8, but otherwise hasno resemblance to the Video8 analogue video system. Some Digital8 equipment can play - but not record - Hi8/Video8, but this isn’t a standard feature of Digital8 technology.

Digitize: Capturing an analog signal in digital form.

Dissolve: Watch a bunch of films and you’ll almost certainly see a number of scenes sort of ‘fade out’ as they end, whilst the beginning of the next scene growsbolder… That’s a dissolve!

Digital: See Analogue

Digital Video (DV): A digital video format that, along with its smaller tape form, MiniDV, has become a standard for home and semi-professional video production. Course, there are professional uses as well. We’re not snobs! Useful for filmmaking and electronic news gathering (ENG), there have been some variations on the DV standard, most notably DVCAM and DVCPRO, targeted at professional use.

From Left to Right:

DVCAM, DVCPRO and MiniDV

Digitise: To make digital! So importing, say, a VHS tape to your computer with an analogue-to-digital converter (DAC) converts the analogue signal to a digital stream… Digitising it!Since digital data can be endlessly copied with no loss of quality and edited by computers, most of today's audio and video media are created in a digital format.

Distressed genes: Parental shock and aversion to teenage fashions such as might be experienced in the build up to a landmark birthday.

Digi: See Digital Betacam

Digitbeta: See Digital Betacam

Digital Betacam: Not content with having one silly name, this is also referred to as Digibeta, d-beta, dbc and Digi. It supersedes both Betacam and Betacam SP whilst delivering high quality and reliability. Costs significantly less than the D-1 format, too...

Digital Betacam equipment is arguably the best format for standard-definition digital video, outperforming cheaper formats such as DVCAM and DVCPRO. Equipment is a little pricey, but you know what they say about getting what you pay for! Size S tapes have up to 40 minutes running time; size L tapes up to 124.

Right: Digibeta Tapes

Discrete: Meaning distinctly separate rather than discreet – tactful or secret!

Dolby Digital (AC-3): An audio compression technology containing up to six discrete channels of sound. The Right Front, Centre, Left Front, Right Rear and Left Rear channels are for normal-range speakers (20 Hz – 20,000 Hz) and the remaining channel (20 Hz – 120 Hz) is for the subwoofer driven, low frequency effects. The Dolby Digital format supports mono and stereo uses as well. All of which means it’s super!Dropout: A glitch or temporary loss of picture due to errors, problems or gremlinsin the tape.

DRM (Digital Rights Management): Hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and others who wish to restrict the use of their digital content and devices use control technologies and theses are known as ‘DRMs’.

DTV: See High-Definition television

DV: See Digital Video

DVCAM: A professional variant of the Digital Video standard that uses the same cassettes as Digital Video and MiniDV and the same codec as regular DV, but transports the tape 50% faster. That means a higher track width of 15 micrometers - which lowers the chances of frustrating and costly dropout errors!

Right: DVCAM

DVCPRO: DVCPRO indeed! Where do they get these names; it sounds like a dominatrix rally... Alright. Panasonic’s idea when designing the DVCPRO series was to offer better linear editing capabilities with electronic news gathering (ENG) specifically in mind.

Right: DVCPRO

DVCPRO25: Like a grown up version of Digital Video, working at about half the data rate as its bedfellow DVCPRO50.

DVCPRO50: The DVCPRO50 standard doubles the bitrate of coded video. The higher data rate cuts recording time in half whilst picture quality rivals Digital Betacam.

DVCPRO HD (DVCPRO100): Uses four parallel codecs and a coded video bitrate of approximately 100 Mbit/s, depending on the format.

Right: DVCPRO

DVD: Standing either for ‘Digital Versatile Disc’ or ‘Digital Video Disc’ -astonishingly no-one’s 100% sure - this is a high quality video and sound quality optical disc. Used for data storage and, of course, movies!

Dynamic range: Simpler than it sounds; bear with us… Describes the ratio between the smallest and largest possible values of a changeable quantity. So, for example, the dynamic range of men’s tee shirts might be S - XXXL! A bit more complicated in the media biz, but you get the idea.

EDL (Edit Decision List): Flashy way of saying the ‘road map’ for how a film or video will look when cut together! Usually carries timecode and other relevant information. Comes into its own when transferring edits from different sources -offline to online editing systems, for example.

Electronic News Gathering (ENG): As it sounds – gathering new information by electronic means. Can be anything from one bloke with a video camera to a full T.V. crew beaming stories around the world by satellite.

Encode: When digital information is converted from one format to another, it is called ‘encoding’.

Encoding: The process of turning information from one format into another. The reverse is called decoding: making a signal into a form suited for transmission or storage, generally done with a codec.

ENG: See Electronic News Gathering

EPK (Electronic Press Kit): See Electronic Press Kit

Electronic Press Kit (EPK): A press kit in an electronic form, obviously, but why would you care? Well, there’s no better way to promote stuff via the mass media! Can include promos, featurettes, clips from programmes, interviews, b-rollfootage and bonus materials amongst others.

EuroSCART: See SCART

Euroconnector: See SCART

Exlaxation: Ephemeral period of optimism and relief experienced between upsets of the stomach when ill.

Facebook: The world’s most popular social media platform! Let’s you stay in touch with friends, family and colleagues. You can update your status (I am eating a piece of burnt toast), upload photos and videos (Here’s me eating burnt toast) and join groups of like-minded people (Folk who love burnt toast).

File Transfer Protocol (FTP): System used to transfer data or exchange files between computers over the Internet, or through a network. FTP servers can be set up between physical servers and internet hosts.

Filming: The tangible bit of a project where people show up with cameras! Generally speaking, even a small shoot will have a full camera and sound kit and, very often, some form of lighting. The latter may gets chopped off when shootingvox pops or footage of things that happen naturally – ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentaries, for example. More formal interviews require lighting, though, as viewer’s expectations tend to be a lot more unforgiving once ‘off the street’!

Firewall: Part of a computer or network system that blocks unauthorised access while permitting welcome communications. A bit like a castle drawbridge over a moat!

Firewire (IEEE 1394): High-speed interface used to connect devices such as digital video cameras, hard drives, audio interfaces, iPod and MP3 players to computers.

Flash: If you want to add animation and interactivity to web pages, ‘Flash’ is often the way to do it! You can use it to create animations, adverts, web page components and to integrate video into web pages; more recently it’s been used to develop rich internet applications. You’ll find our whole website uses ‘Flash’; check out www.dmiproductions.co.uk.

Flash Memory: Computer ‘memory’ mainly found in memory cards and USB flash drives. Ideal for general storage as well as transferring data between digital products.

Flash Memory Card (Flash card): Type of Memory card that uses flash technologyto re-programme in blocks rather than bytes… Basically, it’s faster! Flash cards have also been suggested as a replacement for the hard-disk in Mp3 players, although USB memory drives have been doing this job quite nicely! See alsoMemory card.

Flicker: If the frame rate of a video is too low, then our poor old peepers can’t handle it! There is sometimes a perceived ‘flicker’ and this is what we refer to here.

Flikr: A very popular online community that shares photos; not to be confused with the visual atrocity of ‘Flicker’.

Folksonomies: When online tags are created, managed and categorized, they’re often referred to as ‘folksonomies’. They make managing content such as photos, videos and bookmarks easier.

FTP: See File Transfer Protocol

Fwargh: The small, sanitizing puff of air produced when blowing on dropped food in order that it can be deemed “Still okay to eat”.

Gaffer tape (Camera tape, Duck tape, Duct tape, Gaffa tape): Strong, adhesive tape - used extensively in media production on those rare occasions when the roll is where you thought it was. Gaffer tape is often missing as a result of gremlininterference.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): A popular, if limited, way to store low-resolution data.

Graphic Novel: A graphic novel is a 'comic book' style video that uses photos, sketches or drawings instead of film to provide the action. You can see how effective this looks when you click here for a case study.

Greenscreen: See Chroma key.

Gremlins: Tiny, mischievous creatures known to move, steal and otherwise spoil things whilst you’re trying to work.

GUI: (Graphical User Interface) Interacting with electronic devices such as computers, MP3 Players, Portable Media Players or Gaming devices, household appliances and office equipment, but through images rather than text commands. Like when you click on a ‘window’, for example!

Happy Slapper: Participant in a modern craze which sees pranksters play practical jokes, usually of a violent nature, on unsuspecting folk. Some chav with a recording device tapes the inevitable upset and merriment of victim and perpetrator respectively.

Hashtag: To help you search for words or phrases used in expansive media like ‘Twitter’, short messages are ‘tagged’ by prefixing parts with a # symbol. This allows for the tags to be syndicated and searched on request. So writing ‘#innocent is my favourite fruit drink’ ensures that innocent is identified in a search!

HDMI: Stands for "High-Definition Multimedia Interface." HDMI is a digital interface for transmitting audio and video data in a single cable. It is supported by most HDTVs and related components, such as DVD and Blu-ray players, cable boxes, and video game systems.

HDCAM: High Definition version of Digital Betacam.

HDCAM SR: Commonly used for High Definition television production, this uses a higher particle density tape and captures much more of the full bandwidth of the High Definition signal.

High Definition (HD): Generally refers to a video system of higher resolution than standard-definition (SD) video. Most commonly seen at display resolutions of 1280�720 (720p) or 1920�1080 (1080i or 1080p). Commonly used in television broadcast, video recording formats, and optical disc delivery systems.

Pixel comparisons

HD DVD (High-Definition DVD): A high-density optical disc format designed to succeed the standard DVD format for the storage of data and high-definition video.It tried to best its rival ‘Blu-ray’ but accepted defeat in early 2008, despite boasting a large storage capacity. See the ‘What’s HD all about?’ info sheet at www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info for more on all that malarkey.

HDTV (High-Definition Television): A digital television broadcasting system with a significantly higher resolution than NTSC, SECAM, PAL and so on. Mostly broadcast digitally, ’cos digital television (DTV) requires less bandwidth, HDTV alsouses a different aspect ratio to Standard-Definition Television (SDTV)…

While previous broadcasts used a 4:3 ratio - 4 units wide for every 3 units tall -HDTV uses a ratio of 16:9. The three formats used by HDTV are 1080i (interlaced), 720p and 1080p (progressive) and supports up to 6 channels of audio.

Hi8 (High-band Video8): After Super-VHS (S-VHS) came along, Sony introduced Video Hi8 which improved recorder electronics and media-formulation to increase picture detail. Sounds like the name of a droid from Star Wars, too, so not unlovable.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Not what allowed the Millennium Falcon to the make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs; rather the set of standards governing how computers contact web servers to receive web pages. Without it, there’d be no internet!

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol secure): Combines the above with a coding system for extra security. Payment sites tend to use these, for obvious reasons, as do sites with sensitive info.

Hypervideo: When a video stream contains embedded, clickable links to let you navigate between video and other elements, it becomes ‘Hypervideo’.

IEEE 1394 (Firewire): Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers See Firewire

IPTV (Internet Protocol Television): So you want to watch television on your laptop. Well, open it up, click on and bish, bash, bosh… you can! And that’s thanks to IPTV which is the system that delivers digital television using Internet Protocol via the internet instead of coming via broadcast and cable.

Interlace Scan / Progressive Scan: Interlacing is a way to compress video. Eachinterlaced frame of signal shows alternating horizontal lines of the image. The signal switches between odd and even lines at 60 frames per second, so the video image looks smooth to our little eyes!

Now, because only half the image is sent with each frame, interlacing uses roughly half the bandwidth than it otherwise would. The only downside is fast motion can appear slightly blurred.

With Progressive Scan, pictures are drawn with every line in sequence, like writing text on a page. This involves twice as much data being sent than with interlaced, which these days will usually mean a smoother picture - but with twice the bandwidth!

If you see video formats written out as, say, 576i or 720p, the numbers reveal how many horizontal lines of resolution the signal will use and the ‘p’ tells us it’s a progressive scan signal. In the same way, the 1080i format means there are 1080 lines of resolution, and the ‘i’ means it’s interlaced. Both 720p and 1080i are used by HDTV. Also, check out www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info for our ‘What’s HD all about?’ sheet.

Internet Protocol: System by which computers talk to each other over the web!

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): Image files that employ JPEG compression are commonly called ‘JPEG’ files. In computing terms, this is a method of compression for photos and the like. The most common file extension for this format is ‘.jpg’, though ‘.jpeg’, ‘.jpe’, ‘.jfif’ and ‘.jif’ are also used. It’s possible for JPEG data to be embedded in other file types, such as TIFF format images.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display): You’ve seen it even if you don’t know it! A thin, flat display device in front of a light source or reflector. Much loved by engineers ’cos it uses tiny amounts of power, and is therefore suitable for use in battery powered devices – watches, calculators – you know the kind of thing!

Linear editing: The process of picking the bits you want and arranging them on videotape from whatever source. Until the arrival of hi-tec ‘non-linear editing’ in the early 1990’s, of course, linear video editing was the only option – so it’s also known as just ‘video editing’.

Line Up: A test signal comprising audio and video recorded at the beginning of a tape. This is used as a reference for future recording and playback.

LinkedIn: Like Facebook, only for business! You can put C.V.s online; recommend people you’ve worked with and link to referrals and other people you trust.

Linnacle: Broken part of a child’s doll - especially an arm, leg or head - that inexplicably appears in derelict houses.

Lip smack: An unwanted puckering sound made by actors, actresses and voice over artists during recording.

Lossy compression: Form of compression that usually causes some loss ofquality.

LTC: Linear (or Longitudinal) Timecode (LTC): Often referred to as "Litsy", this encodes an SMPTE timecode as an audio signal. The signal is commonly recordedon a VTR track or the like.

Malarkey (Arkey malarkey, malarky): Exaggerated or foolish talk; nonsense.

Mashup: A web page or application that meshes together either pre-existing functions or data or from a number of other sources to provide a new service.

Megatron/Optimus Prime: Ah, C’mon! They’re Transformers: E-wah-wah-oo-wah! Robots in disguise...

Memory Card (Mem-card): A memory card, or flash memory card (Flash card), is an electronic data storage device. Used with digital cameras, mobile computers, phones, music players, game consoles and the like, they offer high quality ‘re-recordability’, power-free storage and so on.

Metadata: Data about data! An item of metadata might describe an individual content item, or a collection of multiple content items. A bookshop, for example, contains many books, and the data would be the titles of the books. Metadata about the titles would include the author, the ISBN, the number of pages and so on. Similarly, a computer file would be data, the name & type of file, theadministrator’s name and the like would be metadata.

MJPEG (M-JPEG / Motion Jpeg): A format in which each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is separately compressed as a JPEG image. Often used in mobile stuff: digital cameras, phones and the like making it, among other things, the Happy Slapper’s tool of choice!

MiniDV: Compact version of Digital Video; see that entry under High Definition.

Missing effects: In audio terms, exactly as it sounds – or doesn’t sound! A droppedcan of paint on screen that has yet to have an appropriate effect added to it would be described this way.

Moir� / Moire: The effect of a pattern being created on screen when one should not be there. If you’ve ever looked at an optical illusion that creates the impression that something is there that is not, then you’re looking at a Moir�! Bricks, check patters and concentric circles are among the usual suspects for causing this effect…

Right: Moir� effect caused by concentric circles

Mood board: This is a visual tool, often used early in the creative process to communicate initial feelings around an idea. It might comprise colours, font examples, shapes, words, images and other expressions of the ‘mood’ of the proposed piece.

Morocall: The implicitly sad countenance of a discarded soft toy strapped to the front of a dustcart.

MPEG: Usually, MPEG refers to a type of multimedia file, identified by the extension ‘.mpg’ or ‘.mpeg’. These are compressed movies that can contain both audio and video. Though compressed, MPEG files largely maintain the quality of an uncompressed movie. That’s why many videos on the Web, such as movie trailers and music videos, are available in the MPEG format.

MPEG can also stand for ‘Moving Picture Experts Group’. The MPEG organization, which works with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), develops standards for digital audio and video compression. The group works to develop more efficient ways to compress and store audio and video files. Well. It’s a living…

MPEG IMX: A development of the Digital Betacam format, it uses the MPEG compression system, but at a higher bitrate than Betacam SX. The IMX format allows for a standard video signal, with 8 channels of audio and timecode track butlacks an analogue audio (cue) track. Rather, it reads it as ‘Channel 7’ if used for playback.

Mulkin: Any piece of dropped food that requires fwarghing.

MXF (Material eXchange Format): A format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards. It can hold additional information like multiple audio and video streams, subtitles, chapter-information, and metadata,along with the synchronization information needed to play back the various streams together. So there.

NICAM: Acronym for ‘Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex’. Which is,in itself, gibberish! You can look up companding if you like, or relax in the knowledge that NICAM’s just a form of Lossy compression for digital audio that was developed for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks. NICAM has also been used to compress transmissions of TV stereo sound.

Ne’er do well: A lazy, irresponsible or somewhat puckish person; a rascal.

New Media: Another term for ‘digital media’, meaning everything from mobile phones, video streaming and email to mp3 players, virtual reality environments and web sites.

Noise: Random, high frequency sounds that haunt the sound crew are called ‘noise’.

Non-linear editing system (NLE): A video or audio editing system which allowsrandom access on the source material. The data is first digitised to hard disks or the like. Once imported, the data can be edited on a computer using any of a wide range of software.

NTSC: So named ’cos of the body that adopted it - the National Television Standards Committee – this is an analogue TV system used in many parts of the world. See our standards sheet at www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info for more on this sort of thing. The NTSC format uses 29.97 interlaced frames of video per secondinstead of PAL’s 25. Each frame consists of 486 lines out of a total of 525 and the rest are used for non-pictorial information.

Offline editing: A rather fun stage in most projects ’cos you get to play a lot! Offline editing is a process in which footage is copied and edited, usually at a lower resolution, without affecting the original film or tape. Once a programme has been completed in this way, the original media will be conformed in the online editingstage.

Online editing: When the offline edit is complete, the pictures are re-assembled at full resolution. All the fancy guff - graphics, audio mix, etc - gets added in, often overseen by the folk that pay the bills! And the editing process winds down…

Oojermeflip (Oojamaflip, Thingamajig, Watchamacallit): Any obscure or inveterate piece of equipment, the real name for which continues to prove elusive.

Open ID: Allows you to use an existing online identity to sign into multiple websites, with the same password. For example, you can setup a Twitter feedusing your Google account user details.

Optical disc: In computing, sound reproduction and video, this is a disc that storesdata in the form of pits, or bumps, on an otherwise flat surface - usually along a single spiral groove that covers the entire recorded surface. Examples include DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray, laserdisc, minidisc and compact disc.

Out of Sync.: Ever been watching T.V. or video and noticed that the words a character is speaking are a little out of synchronization with the on-screen image. That’s what this refers to!

PAL (Phase Alternating Line): Not at all “Something out of Star Trek”, rather a colour encoding system used in parts of the world in broadcast television. There are other worldwide standards, including SECAM and NTSC; see our ‘Which country uses what standards’ info sheet at www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info

PC: Personal Computer.

PDA: See Personal Digital Assistant

PDP: See Plasma Display Panel

Pedition: The slow-dawning realization that the shoes you thought would stop pinching after you’d broken them in are, in fact, just too small and will forever remain hellishly uncomfortable.

Peer-To-Peer (P2P): Nothing to do with Kidneys… Rather, it’s a network system made up of participants that make some resources available to their peers. In other words, they share technical demands through a network rather than a sole server.

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA): Any of the many portable gadgets that help organise your life!

Plasma Display Panel (PDP): Mmmmm, plasma… Flat panel display increasingly used for large and gorgeous TV’s. Many tiny cells located between two panels of glass hold a mixture of gases. The gas in the cells is electrically turned into a plasma, which then excites phosphors to emit light. So now you know!

Podcasts: Digital media files, usually audio or video, which are released episodically for you to download.

Pre-production: Anything that happens before the cameras roll is covered by the phrase pre-production. For example, our free consultation, designed to help get ideas up, running and looking great, is a pre-production meeting; other pre-production considerations include, say, the setting up of crew, equipment and all the logistics.

Print through: An undesired kind of ‘echo’ found in audio work that comes either just before or just after the real audio.

Progressive (Progressive Scan): See Interlace

Ratio: See Aspect Ratio

R-DAT: See DAT

Resolution: Insert a pithy remark about New Year here! Actually refers to the quality of an image, usually measured in a number of lines & pixels. Analogue TV uses around 200,000 pixels compared to HDTV which has more than 2 million – in other words, the better the resolution, the clearer the picture.

Retweet: A ‘Twitter’ term that relates to re-posting something once posted by another user. A ‘retweet’ is usually preceded with "RT" and "@username" to give credit to the original author.

RGB Analogue Component Video: RGB just stands for Red, Green and Blue, whilst ‘Analogue component video’ is a video signal standard found in many European / Japanese televisions and most modern computers.

Rottlecrum: A mulkin that’s deemed unsalvageable despite fwarghing, such as those later found between sheets, sofa cushions or in furniture crevices.

RSS Feeds: Controversial! It might stand for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ or it might be for ‘Rich Site Summary’… No-one’s quite sure! Either way, it refers to info from things like blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video that are digital and updated often in a standardised format. These feeds are read using software called ‘RSS readers’, ‘feed readers’, or ‘aggregators’, which can be web, desktop, or mobile-device based

Same Day Edit: The undeniably edgy, clever and impressive process of taking footage captured during the day and having it edited, audio-mixed, mastered and played back, with a soundtrack to inspire, the same day. DMI loves to provide dedicated editors to achieve the somewhat awesome effect this has in a quick turnaround time.

Scan conversion: A method by which one changes the vertical / horizontal scan rate of video signal. Examples of this would be converting computer signals to a TV set and so on. The magical tool that does this for you is, rather predictably, called ascan converter.

Scan rate: Without getting too sucked into it, this describes the frequency at which a CRT moves the electron beam from the display’s left to the right side - and back! This determines the number of horizontal or vertical lines on a screen per second.

SCART (Le Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radior�cepteurs et T�l�viseurs): Of course, having had their own snazzy name catch on all over the place, those wily French just called it P�ritel! Elsewhere it’s known as the 21-pin EuroSCART or Euroconnector.

All over Europe, SCART remains the most common way to connect audio-visual equipment, and has become the standard connector for such devices. But you know how it is… Things popular in Europe: not so much elsewhere. David Hasslehoff’s music, for example.

SDK (Software Development Kit): Not content to let us accept that every profession has its nomenclature and, indeed, its own special, mystical ways, someone somewhere has conjured the abbreviation ‘SDK… This needlessly describes the development tools of software engineers such as they might use to create applications, frameworks, computer & operating systems, video game consoles, hardware and other platforms.

SDTV: Standard Definition Television. Just television until HDTV came along and lifted our hearts.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): If you want to promote your website, you’ll probably aim to increase your visibility on search engine pages. The art and science of doing so is called SEM and involves things like ‘paid placements’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘contextual advertising’.

Search Engine Optimizers (SEO): These are the people and techniques that carry out the donkey work for the above!

SECAM: The wily French bring us ‘S�quentiel couleur � m�moire’ or "Sequential Colour with Memory". Commonly used in Eastern Europe and France, it’s an analogue colour TV system. SECAM television’s a bit faffy to edit, so post-production is often handled in PAL & converted into SECAM at transmission point.

Shufti: A butcher's, a look; a bit of a gawp.

Sibilance: Sibilance is the hissing sound associated with sentences such as these! Anytime there are a lot of S’s, Sh’s or Ch’s, you get sibilance. It’s relevant in media terms because sibilance can indicate an imbalance in audio equipment. Or someone who hisses when they speak, obviously!

Sizzle: A sizzle is a short piece designed to excite, inform, motivate or otherwise stimulate the senses. Visit www.dmiproductions.co.uk/casestudies for an example of a sizzle or two.

Skype: Want to chat to a chum overseas? There’s a good chance ‘Skype’ will help you do it! It’s now the most popular ‘voice over internet’, or’ VOIP’, software going. You can call ‘Skype to Skype’ free of charge or set things up so that you call regular landlines or mobiles. That’ll cost you something, though

SMPTE: The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Based in the USA, this organisation recognizes over 400 standards, and recommends practices and guidelines for T.V., motion pictures, digital cinema, audio and medical imaging.

Social Media: Anything ‘put out there’ via online social interaction. Networks take many forms, including internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few.

Social Networking Service: Online communities of people sharing interests or activities. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for people to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

Solid state: Essentially, a solid state device is one in which no mechanical actionoccurs and are, understandably, considered more durable. For example, calculators, mobile phones and USB keys have no moving parts inside and aresolid-state; CD players and computer hard drives have moving bits and are not. Rather excitingly, solid state cameras are currently in their infancy; theoretically these will make life much quicker and easier.

Standards: See our standards info sheet at www.dmiproductions.co.uk/info

Storyboards:

Streaming: When a multimedia file can be played back without being completely downloaded first, it’s called streaming. Some files, such as software updates off the Internet, don’t stream data, whilst others, like Real Audio and QuickTime, can.With a fast Internet connection, you can actually stream live audio or video.

Subwoofer: Must… Resist… Joke… Speaker used to carry low end frequencies;commonly found in surround sound set ups.

S-VHS: S-VHS, or Super VHS, is a refinement of VHS for consumer video cassette recorders. It has improved picture detail, with a horizontal resolution of 425 lines per picture height, as opposed to your common or garden VHS, which limps along with 240.

Tag: A keyword or term assigned to a piece of info, such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file, etc. They make it easier to search through the plethora of stuff online.

Ticker: On news broadcasts, pay per view television channels and the like, the banner that scrolls messages across the screen is called a ‘ticker’.

TIFF: Not only an argument between folk and a long time Eastenders' favourite, but also an acronym for ‘Tagged Image File Format’, a complicated file format for storing photographs, line art and the like. It happily handles multiple data in a single file by using ‘tags’ in the header. The tags indicate basic details of the imageor outline how the info is arranged, etc. Files originating on one computer may be unreadable by another ’cos of TIFF’s complexity.

Timecode: see BITC, LTC and VITC

Twitter: Social media platform that allows short messages – known as ‘Tweets’ –to be posted.

U-matic: This was among the first video cassette formats to contain tape inside a cassette, as opposed to being an ‘open-reel’. No longer used in mainstream production, but many T.V. facilities still use a U-matic recorder for playback of archive material.

USB (Universal Serial Bus): Without getting too technical, it’s a system that allows the easy transfer of data between computer components not only inside a computer, but also between computers.

VGA (Video Graphics Array): Really, it’s a colour display graphic standard that’s a bit out of date in modern terms. However, some people now refer to VGA meaning a resolution of 640�480, regardless of the hardware at hand as it’s becoming fairly standard in pocket PC’s and PDA’s. Sometimes VGA may refer to a wee 15-pin connector which is often used to carry analogue video signals – there are too many to list here, but common ones include SVGA and XGA. Call 01784 42 12 12 for moreinfo.

Video Sharing Sites (Video Hosting Site): Sites for the distribution of videos! You Tube is the most popular video-sharing site on the internet.

VHS: Bizarrely, it’s short for Video Home System - you’d have thought Home Video System made more sense! Made with half inch tape, it was used domestically – in Billy Joel’s words – “Oh-whoa, hoa… For the longest time!”

Video8: Quietly sauntering into a market dominated by the bulkier VHS and Betamax formats came the Video8. Quality and performance wise, Video8 and VHS performed similarly and both operated with 240 horizontal lines.

Video Editing: See Linear editing

VITC: (Vertical Interval TimeCode): This is pronounced "vitsy"; sometimes shortened to "vits". A form of SMPTE timecode embedded as a pair of black-and-white bars in a video signal. In practical terms, VITC can be more 'frame-accurate' than LTC, particularly at very slow tape speeds on analogue formats. At fast forward and rewind speeds, VITC is often made unreadable by distortion, so the LTC is used instead.

Vlogs: A ‘blog’, but specifically done on video.

VoD (Video on Demand): Anything that allows users to view video – er – on demand!

Voice Over Internet (VOIP): See ’Skype’.

Vox pop: From the latin ‘Vox populi’. Latin! Ah, yes. There was that poem… “Latin’s a dead language, as dead as dead can be… It killed off all the Romans, and now it's killing me!” Anyway, it literally means ‘voice of the people’. Those mini interviews with members of the public in the street are usually called vox pops.

VTR: Video Tape Recorder

Waveform: A waveform is an image that represents an audio signal or recording. It shows the changes in amplitude over a certain amount of time. The amplitude of the signal is measured vertically on the y-axis, while time is measured horizontally on the x-axis.

Web 2.0: Refers to the so-called “second generation” of web development and design… Which itself led to the evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. So all the social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, ‘mashups’ and ‘folksonomies’ are the result of web 2.0…

Webisodes: Episodes on the web! That’s to say online content that’s distributed episodically.

Widget: Oh gosh, oh golly, oh wow! This word’s been around for a while… It’s the name given to a small ball found in some beer cans, a marvel comics’ character AND a catch all name for technologies yet to be invented! Now, though, it’s also a software service that lets you run and display ‘applets’ on a graphical user interface, such as that of the desktop, mobile phone or website.

WiFi: Technologies that allow systems to work together wirelessly. Most common in personal computer operating systems, many video game consoles, laptops, smartphones, printers and so on.

Wiki: A website that uses specific software to allow the interlinked Web pages to be made and maintained by ordinary human beings. These ‘Wikis’ are often used for collaborative and community websites, corporate intranets, and knowledge management systems.

XDCAM: An optical disc based professional video system thatfeatures tapeless recording of DVCAM, MPEG IMX and, in the XDCAM HD variant, HDV video data, as well as MXF metadata.

XDCAM discs can be used within a traditional tape-based workflow; the decks can also serve as random access computer drives for easy import of the data files into non-linear editing (NLE) systems.

XDCAM HD: High Definition version of the tapeless XDCAM format, with a capacity of 50 GB and an MPEG 4:2:2 HD codec with bitrate up to 50 Mbit/s.

Y'PbPr Analogue Component Video: Like RGB, but not using the Red, Green, Bluecomponents! Instead, a colourless component called luma combines with one or more colour-carrying components - chroma - that gives colour information. The Y'PbPr scheme is most likely what’s being referred to if folk talk about component video.

Well, there you have it. Either you’re going off now with the feeling that looking up that word has helped you learn something, or the feeling that looking it up here has simply taught you a lesson… Hope it’s the former!

Finally, if you chance across media phrases and the like that aren’t here, call us on 01784 42 12 12. There’s usually someone floating around who knows these things and, whilst we’ve tried to cover most things, there’s still a load of technical talkthat we haven’t made room for.

� DMI Productions 2010. The Voice of DMI holds full copyright for the material contained herein. You may think that’s like padlocking a dustbin, but it’s our dustbin, and it’s our lock.