Digital Expression Glossary 2

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Video

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Series of static images that simulate movement.

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Vitaphone

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It is a system of sound on disc developed by the Bell Telephone Company and Western Electric. It was used as a match in silent movies to give an environment context and narration to the stories. It was widely used by Warner Brothers in at least 100 of their first movies.

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Movietone

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It is a system of sound recording created in 1922 by Theodore Case and Earl Sponable; it integrated the sound to the images, and it was firstly used by Fox company, which is now known as 20th Century Fox.

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Beta

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It is an analogic format to produce home videos. It consisted of a magnetic tape developed by Sony. It was sold in 1975, and it has the capacity of storing 266 to 300 lines depending if it was black and white, or color. It recorded around 2 hours.

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VHS

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It stands for Video Home System. It was similar to an audio cassette with 1/2 inch tape. It was highly accepted for around 20 years before the appearance of DVD's.

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Flash Memory

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It is an EEPROM type memory (Electronically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memory). It was created in 1984 by Fujio Masuoka. There are many versions of it: some have the shape of a pen, a bar, camera cards, etc. It is quick and silent, and it is easy to carry. It has a storing capability that is much higher than it's predecessor, the floppy disc.

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DVD

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It stands for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc. It replaced the Beta technology in recording and distributing video material. Its recording process is based on the use of laser instead of electromagnetism. This provides more quality in both audio and video.

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Retinal persistence

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It is the effect in the eye’s retina that makes the images perceived by the eye be recorded for a very small fraction of time, like a tenth of a second. When the eye is exposed to a succession of fixed images, the illusion of movement gives life to the magic of cinema. It was discovered by the Belgian Joseph Plateau.

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FPS

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It stands for Frames per second. It is the amount of frames that are shown on a video in a period of one second.

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PAL

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It stands for Phase Alternating Line which consists on the using of 25 frames per second. It is used in Europe, Asia, and some countries of America.

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NTSC

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It stands for National Television System Committee. It consists on using 30 frames per second to create video, including an aspect ratio of 4:3 and an optimum handling of sound.

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SECAM

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(Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire): it is similar to PAL, but it is less known. It was created in France, so it is more used in Europe, and it has an optimum handling of color.

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EDTV

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(Enhanced Definition Television) it has SDTV (Standard Definition Television) technology, and it can display between 480 and 576 lines in the PAL or NTSC frequencies.

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HDTV

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(High Definition Television) it works with three resolutions: 720p, 1080i and 1080p; it has the ability to be converted as needed in order to commute among them. There are two possible values for the handling of the different resolutions: “p” or “i”.

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Blu-ray

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It refers to the technology based on a blue beam that allows the recording of different layers of a DVD, especially designed for high density recording. It may contain from 1 to 4 layers, and each one has a capacity of 25GB. It handles HD information (1080p/60), differently from the DVD which only handles 480p or 576p.

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HD-DVD

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It stands for High Definition Digital Video Disk. It was supported by Toshiba as a better alternative to DVD since it allowed a storing of 15 GB in each one of its layers.

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codec

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It means coder-decoder. It is software that consists on an algorithm to compress and decompress video in real time. Its use doesn’t interfere with the playing speed. There are also codecs for audio files.

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AVI

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It is one of the standard formats to store digital video in different platforms. A video that is inserted in a Window computer (recorded from the computer’s camera) will automatically use the Digital Video (DV) codec.

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DivX

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It is a codec that can be used in Windows and MacOs platforms to create MPEG-4 standards.

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xVid

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It is a compression algorithm, developed by free programmers. It does not represent any loss of information. A complete movie can weight only 700MB instead of several GB.

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MPEG

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It is a format that is considered standard to compress digital video.

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MOV

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It uses Apple’s own codec, which handles the color palette of this platform optimally. This type of files may also have the .QT extension, which is for the Quick Time app.

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WMV

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This format was designed by Microsoft. It is based on the MPEG-4 codec to compress the video. It can be found with the extension .ASF. It is compatible with Windows 7 or beyond. Just like in MOV, it allows streaming and it is fairly good for being published on Internet.

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RM

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It is the format of Real Networks for video files. It is based on its own codec to compress the audio, and it has an extension .RM and .RAM. It is necessary to have the Real Player app to work. It has a good aspect ratio with weight, quality and size for a video to be publishable on Internet since it allows streaming.

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FLV

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This format is based on the Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 codecs. Both allow a high visual quality no matter if the user has a high downloading speed in his devices. Their extension is .FLV which can be reproduced from different local programs such as MPlayer, VLC media player, Riva, Xine, etc.

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VOB

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It is the format that contains video, audio and subtitles. Its extension is .VOB and it is normally used in the distribution of DVD, being kept in order inside the folder of Video_Ts.

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3GP

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It is used on mobile devices such as 3G telephones. It was developed with the purpose of having standards for mobile technology; the format mpeg4 was used as a base.

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Script

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The written text of a stage play, screenplay, or broadcast.

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Scene

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Is the smallest unit to measure events in a story in a determined time and place.

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Dialog

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A conversation that happens between two or more individuals that present their ideas in an alternative way.

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Plot twist

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Using lateral thinking to create new ideas or situations, and new and unexpected solutions. To end, it needs to go back to its lineal phase in order to shape the new structure.

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Storyboard

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Is a group of images with notes, like a graphic mind map in which the images are presented in sequence.

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Frame

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They are browsing elements that create divisions in a browsing window to observe different documents at the same time.

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Perspective

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It refers to the non-parallel lines that are stretched in a work until they reach an imaginary point called the vanishing point.

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Framing

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It is an image that is seen through a camera viewer.

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Shooting

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It is when all the pre-production details have been arranged and solved.

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Editing

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Process of manipulating and rearranging video shots to create a new work.

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Conversion

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Copying data from one type of data storage medium (magnetic tape, for example) to another (a CD, for example).