Freeware - Software offered free of charge by the developer to anyone wishing to use it.
A/V Input Jacks - Audio/video input jacks allow you to connect external sources to your TV quickly and easily. These jacks connect your sources directly to audio and video circuits of the TV set, bypassing the tuner for optimum picture and sound reproduction. The video input is a composite video input.
Invar Shadow Mask - Helps provide greater resistance to the effects of heat produced by electron beam bombardment. This protection helps reduce the problem of colour blur from "doming" and assures consistently bright, sharp images in TVs.
RAM (Random Access Memory) - The high-speed portion of the computer's memory that is held on special chips for use in current applications or procedures.
C-band / Ku-band. - 1. a range of RF spectrum. C-band is app. 4 GHz. Ku-band is app. 12 GHz. 2. Geo-stationary satellites the networks use to acquire and distribute programming to affiliates and cable TV companies. These satellites use C-band and Ku-band frequencies. 3. a consumer service that uses the satellites the networks originally set up for themselves. An 8-foot steerable dish is required. Some channels are free. Others are available by subscription. The digital channel subscription service is called 4DTV.
Subtractive Primaries - These are the three colors that are used to create all other colors in color photographic printing. (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow)
VSB - " Vestigial side band." VSB is an analog modulation technique used to reduce the amount of spectrum needed to transmit information through cable TV, or over-the-air broadcasts.
16 Base - The 2048 x 3072 pixels image that is scanned and stored on a Photo CD and suitable for digital imaging and desktop publishing applications.
3:2 pull-down - This is the process of converting a 24 frames/sec image into a 30 frames/sec image. Some line-doublers will reverse this process to acquire the original, and then re-perform it.
Aspect Ratio - the ratio of image width to image height. The term may apply to the display device configuration, or the shape of the content being displayed. (See Letterboxing) HDTV uses an aspect ratio of 16 units wide by 9 units high. Conventional television programming and displays are at an aspect ratio of 4 - 3. Digital SDTV programs may aspect ratios from 4 - 3 to 16 - 9, dependant on content and its source (e.g. upconverted NTSC is likely to be 4 - 3).
Comb filter - A circuit in NTSC sets that separates the color information from the brightness information.
Descreening - A feature of some scanners that allow them to eliminate moir‚ patterns that can occur.
Franklin eBookMan - A line of eBook reader and content playing handhelds developed by Franklin.
Hertz (Hz.) - A scale used for measuring the number of cycles per second.
IEEE1394 - High-bandwidth digital connection that uses MPEG-2 compression. Requires a decoder for playback and offers networking capabilities.
Interlaced Scanning - Some HD televisions and most conventional televisions use the "interlace" method of scanning, in which the picture is transmitted and painted on the screen in two passes. In the first pass, every other line is painted and in the second, the lines in between. Some display types, such as LCD, plasma and DLP cannot display directly images transmitted as interlaced signals and must convert them to a progressive format prior to their display.
Sampling - This is the digital process by which analog information is measured, often millions of times per second, in order to convert analog to digital.
Surround Output Level - Allows adjustment of the rear speaker level relative to the front speaker level according to viewing location and individual preference.