Philips SA1VBE04K Glossary, Compression, Decibel dB, Very common digital still picture format

16 Glossary

A

Album art

Album art is a feature that displays the artwork (cover picture) of a music album. This display enables the user to quickly identify

a music album. The artwork files for music albums can be downloaded from the Internet.

C

Compression

In audio terms, this is a process of temporarily or permanently reducing audio data for more efficient storage or transmission. A temporary reduction in file size is called ‘non-lossy’ compression, and no information is lost. A permanent reduction in file size (such as with MP3 files) is called ‘lossy’ compression, and involves discarding unnecessary information which is irretrievably lost.

D

Decibel (dB)

A unit of measure used to express relative difference in power or intensity of sound.

Digital Audio

Digital Audio is a sound signal that has been converted into numerical values. Digital sound can be transmitted through multiple channels. Analog sound can only be transmitted through two channels.

F

FM (Frequency Modulation)

In radio broadcasting: a method of modulation in which the frequency of the carrier voltage is varied with the frequency of the modulation voltage.

J

JPEG

A very common digital still picture format.

Astill-picture data compression system proposed by the Joint Photographic Expert Group, which features small decrease in image quality in spite of its high compression ratio.

Files are recognized by their file extension

‘.jpg’ or ‘.jpeg.’

K

Kbps

Kilobits per second. A digital-data-rate measurement system which is often used with highly compressed formats such as AAC, DAB, MP3 etc. The higher the amount, the better the quality generally is.

L

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

Probably the most common way to show visual information on non-computer electronic equipment.

M

MHz (Mega Hertz)

One million cycles per second.

MP3

A file format with a sound data compression system. MP3 is the abbreviation of Motion Picture Experts Group 1 (or MPEG-1) Audio Layer 3. With the MP3 format, one CD-R or CD-RW can contain about 10 times more data than a regular CD.

P

PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) Pioneering form of digital recording.

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