Geek Speak Glossary

Portable Media Devices

3GP Video Third Generation Platform Video. This video standard is used in many cellularphones. Third Generation stands for a level of cellular network service typifiedby higher bandwidths that make such services as streaming video possible.

AAC Short for Advanced Audio Coding. The AAC codec is designed as a successorto the MP3 codec, and has been adopted by Apple and others as a distributionstandard. Combined with the proprietary FairPlay DRM it is the foundationof the Apple iTunes music store.

ActiveSync An application designed by Microsoft to synchronize calendar, task, and con-tact information between a personal computer and a PDA.

Aggregator An application designed to aggregate blog or podcast feeds in a single placefor easier use.

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format. An early audio codec used by Apple for audioon early Macintosh computers.

AppleScript A scripting language designed for Apple Macintosh computers. AppleScriptuses English-like commands to automate common tasks such as retrievinginput and performing operations based in the input.

AVI Short for Audio Visual Interleave. AVI was designed by Microsoft for Windowsvideo. It has been extended and used with more efficient codecs such as Indeo,MPEG-4, and even RealVideo.

Bit Map A map created on a computer screen depicting a picture as a map of pixels.Each pixel, in turn is set to a specified color to create the picture. At sufficientlyhigh resolutions, a bitmap is nearly indistinguishable from a real photo.

Bit Rate The term used to quantify the recording rate used with a specific audio orvideo codec. At higher bit rates more audio or video information is encodedeach second resulting in a higher quality recording.

Blog A weblog (or blog) is a news and information source that can be publishedusing the facilities of an online blog site or can be constructed on your ownwebsite using blogging tools. Blogs are “read” with a web browser or a newsaggregator that subscribes to the blog’s syndication page, retrieving new arti-cles as they are published.

BMP See Bit Map

Burning As used in media terminology, the act of creating a CD or DVD disc by burningmicroscopic pits in a substrate on the disc creating a pattern of 1s and 0s torecord digital information.

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BURN-proof A technology supported by CD-R drives that helps prevent emptying the burnbuffer, a section of memory in the recorder that holds data waiting to beburned.

Byte A unit of digital information consisting of eight bits (individual 1s or 0s).

Codec Short for code-decode, a codec is a standardized audio or video format usedto compress and distribute digital media.

CopyProtection

Technology used to prevent the unauthorized duplication of copyrightedmaterial.

CPU Short for Central Processing Unit. The component on a computer that pro-cesses program instructions to carry out the functions of a computer applica-tion or operating system.

DigitalMillenniumCopyright Act

The United States’ implementation of an international agreement to ban theunauthorized duplication of electronic media.

Digital RightsManagement

Technology designed to copy protect digital media.

DMCA See Digital Millennium Copyright Act

DRM See Digital Rights Management

FairPlay DRM Apple Computers’ implementation of DRM for copy protection of media soldthrough the iTunes music store.

FireWire FireWire is a high speed serial interconnection standard for connecting pe-ripheral devices to a personal computer system. Popular in Macintosh com-puters, it is becoming more prevalent on other systems where video interfacingand production is done.

FLAC See Free Lossless Audio Codec

Flash Memory A form of Electrically-Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM)that can maintain data storage without external power. Flash memory is usedon consumer media storage devices such as memory cards and MP3 players.

Free LosslessAudio Codec

A freely distributed lossless audio codec. FLAC has received critical acclaimfrom music enthusiasts and is supported on several music players.

GIF Also known as Graphics Interchange Format, GIF was developed by Com-puServe for the distribution of graphics files.

Gigabyte Gigabyte is a unit of storage equivalent to 1,000,000,000 bytes.

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Grokster A file sharing technology using the FastTrack file sharing network, Groksterwas ordered to cease and desist operation by the United States Supreme Court.Grokster ceased operation in November of 2005 (during the writing of thisbook) and plans to return with a legal service.

GW-BASIC An early BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft for IBM PC-Compatible computers.

HDTV High Definition Television is an enhanced television display technologysupporting higher resolution than standard television display. With displaysof 720 and 1080 lines, it can more than double the resolution of standardtelevision.

Helix DRM A digital rights management technology used by Real Networks for the Rhap-sody music service.

Hertz A unit of frequency measure, Hertz refers to the number of cycles or waveformsmeasured per second. Hertz is used for the notation of both audio and elec-tromagnetic frequencies.

JPEG Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is a lossy photo file formatwidely used for its relatively small file size. JPEG files are used extensively forwebsite graphics and clipart.

JPG See JPEG

KaZaA A music sharing application that used the FastTrack file sharing network toswap music files. Ruled illegal in Australia, it is also pending trial in the UnitedStates.

Kilobyte Kilobyte is a unit of data storage equivalent to 1,000 bytes.

Megabyte Megabyte is a unit of data storage equivalent to 1,000,000 bytes.

Metadata See Tags

MonitorFolder

In Windows Media Player, a folder that the application is configured to“watch” (See Watch Folder). As songs are added to this folder, they are indexedin Media Player as well.

MOV A multimedia container file format used by Apple’s QuickTime video appli-cation. This file contains video, audio, and captioning information for Quick-Time video presentations.

MP3 A compound acronym for the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) Layer3 audio protocol. MP3 files contain audio information in a compressed format.MP3 uses a lossy codec, and has somewhat lower quality than successive

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formats, but is popular with music enthusiasts for its wide compatibility andquality audio reproduction.

MP4 The container file format used by the MPEG-4 multimedia specification.

MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group. Also used to denote video and multimediaformats approved by the Moving Picture Experts Group.

MPEG-4 A multimedia container format created by the Moving Picture Experts Groupfor audio and video distribution. It is especially suited for high quality videodistribution over the Internet.

Napster A wildly popular music sharing application that was found to be illegal, butreturned in legitimate form to become a major music storefront. Napster isone store to support Microsoft’s PlaysForSure initiative.

OGG A free multimedia container format gaining popularity as a royalty-free alter-native to MP4 and Windows Media. OGG audio (Vorbis) and video (Theora)are supported in an increasing number of portable media devices.

Open Source A method of application development that relies on a community of program-mers to develop, debug, and update an application using freely-shared sourcecode. The premise of this development method is that many eyes make bettercode. This is in opposition to the theory of closed source software that fewereyes promote greater security.

PDA See Personal Digital Assistant

PersonalDigitalAssistant

A portable device designed to maintain calendar, contact, and task informationto enable the user to more effectively manage time and work.

Pixel A unit of video display relating to the smallest area able to display a coloreddot or square. Pixels are combined into larger images.

Playlist

PlaysForSure A Microsoft initiative to certify stores and devices for digital media distribution.Certified stores and devices are guaranteed to work with Windows MediaPlayer.

PNG A recursive acronym that is short for PNGs Not GIF. The PNG specificationwas designed to replace GIF when Unisys computers filed a lawsuit against

Geek Speak Glossary

A list of songs or videos to be played in a multimedia application or portablemedia device. Playlists can also be used to organize media for copying orstorage.

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users of the GIF specification because it infringed on a Unisys patent for filecompression. It is still used in websites and other digital media.

Podcast An audio (or recently video) file published in such a way as to be visible topodcast aggregating software. Podcasting was popularized by Adam Curry asa means of providing portable entertainment on iPod media players.

Podcatcher An application designed to subscribe to and download podcasts.

Processor See CPU

RealAudio An Internet audio specification designed by Real Networks as a competitor toWindows Media and other audio formats.

Really SimpleSyndication(RSS)

A method of alerting blog readers that new blog entries have been added to ablog site. Other uses for this capability include podcast publication, and eventhe publication of messages to subscribers as a means of combating spam.

RealVideo An Internet video specification designed by Real Networks as a competitor toWindows Media and other video formats.

Ripping The act of copying CD audio into a digital file. Often the file is converted intoa lossy audio format during the same operation.

RSS See Really Simple Syndication

Syndication A method of publishing media content so as to make a consumer aware ofnewly released content or articles.

Tags Metadata that contains information about a song, its composer, the performingartist, length, bit rate, even information about genre and accompanying artists.Tags can be referred to as track information (iTunes) and can be used to syn-chronize lyrics to the song in players such as Windows Media Player. MP3suse standardized tags that conform to either the ID3V1 or ID3V2 specifica-tions; iTunes and Windows Media use their own proprietary tagging methods.

Terabyte Terabyte is a unit of data storage equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Transcode To convert media from one format to another. This term is often used withreference to the conversion of media between lossy formats and is usuallyassociated with some reduction in media fidelity.

USB Also known as Universal Serial Bus. USB is a serial interface designed to con-nect peripherals to personal computer equipment.

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Vorbis An audio format designed for distribution with the OGG media container for-mat. Vorbis is royalty free and is supported on an increasing number ofportable media devices.

Watch Folder A setting in Winamp that is configured to be “watched” by the application.When songs are added to a watch folder they are added to the Media Libraryindex and included in any applicable smart views and playlists.

WAV An audio format designed by Microsoft and IBM for personal computer audio.WAV files are usually lossless and are used by many recording engineers tostore files.

WindowsMedia DRM

A digital rights management format used by Microsoft’s Windows Media andassociated players.

WMA Short for Windows Media Audio. WMA was designed by Microsoft as a suiteof audio formats using a variety of codecs. Quality can be varied from verylossy AM radio quality to lossless studio quality formatting.

WMA-DRM See Windows Media DRM

WMV Short for Windows Media Video. WMV was designed by Microsoft as a con-tainer for video. Supported codecs can create a range of quality options fromvery poor to high-definition quality.

Geek Speak Glossary

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