How many times have you been at a store or a website and not understood what they are on about. Hopefully this page will help.

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1080 – The number of horizontal lines that is displayed on the screen. It is the resolution for Full High Definition (Full HD).

768 – the number of horizontal line that is displayed on screen. It is the resolution for High Definition (HD).

16:9 – The aspect ratio of wide screen. It is written as width by the height.

4:3 – The aspect ration of standard screen. It is a more square screen. It is written as width by height.

4K – This is a quick reference for resolution of 3840 x 2160. You can see it is close to 4k (4000).

2.35:1 – The aspect ratio of anamophic screen. It is similar to wide screen but is much wider. It is written as width by the height.

 

 

A

A/D – Analogue / Digital

Active –

Ambient Light – The amount of present light

Anamorphic – Is a aspect ratio of 2.35:1 The width is 2.35 times wider than the height.

Anamorphic Lens – A lens that converts a wide screen projector to anamorphic screen.

Aspect Ratio – What you would talk about when describing a screen height in relation to its width.

 

 

B

Bass – Is the lower frequency range in sound.

Brightness – The amount of light that is produced and/or seen on screen.

 

C

Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) – This is the “old style” analogue Television.

CD – Compact Disc

CDR – Recordable Compact Disc

CDRW – Rewriteable Compact Disc

Coaxial Cable – It can refer to the cable that is used for the antenna or the cable that is used for transfering digital audio. It is commonly referred to as coax cable or just coax.

Component – It can be refering to the devices in the home theatre. Example is the CD player is a component that plays CD, Or it refers to the component video cable. This is where the video signal is split in to 3 cables, Red, Green and Blue.

Component Video – This is where the video signal is split in to 3 cables, Red, Green and Blue.

Contrast – It is an adjustment available for video. It is used to measureme the difference between black and white (dark and light)

CRT – See Cathode Ray Tube

 

 

D

D/A – Digital / Analogue

DAC – Digital Analogue Converter.

Decibel (dB) – Used to measure sound pressure

 

 

F

Fiber Optic Cable – Cable used to transfer digital sound from one device to another. It uses light to send the information.

Frame Rate – The number of frames of picture in one second.

 

 

G

Gamma –

H

HUM – Undesired noise produced. It is usually a lower frequency sound. It can mean there is a problem somewhere in the setup.

HDMI –High Definition Multimedia Interface is a digital connection that can send/receive both audio and videio signal uncompressed.

HD – High Definition

 

 

I

Interconnects – The cables that are used to connect each device to another

 

 

J

Jitter –

K

Keystone – It is where the picture is wider or narrower then its oposing side. It is a common problem when projectors are not set central / parallel to the screen.

 

 

L

Lag – It is when the picture and the sound are not snycronised to each other.

Letterbox – It is when you have a 2.35:1 movie shown(or filmed) on a 16:9 size therefore you get a blank area (which looks black) top and bottom of the screen. This means the picture looks like a letterbox opening.

 

 

M

Mono-

 

N

 

O

Optical Digital Cable – See fibre opical cable

 

P

PAL – It is the analogue broadcast system used here in Australia. ( it was at least before digital broadcast.)

Passive –

 

Q

 

 

R

RCA – A common connection used for audio connections through home theatre

Resolution – The amount of pixels in a picture. It can be mesure by inch (dot per inch DPI) or the overall pixel in the screenm for example 1920 x 1080

RGB – Red, Green, Blue. It is used to describe a component connection.

RS-232 – A serial connection. In home theatre terms it can be used to connect a device for control by another device.

 

 

S

Source – Is the device that is used to play your movie or music. DVD player, Ipod and Blu-ray players are examples of sources.

Subwoofer – A speaker that produces the lower frequencies in sound. They usual produce frequencies below 200Hz. Most home theatre subwoofers are active (having its own amplifier built in).

Stereo – Two channel audio

 

 

T

Throw Distance – The distance the projector is positioned away from the screen

Throw Ratio – The distance for positioning a projector from the screen in relation to the width of the screen

Trebble – Describes the high end of the frequency in sound.

Tweeter – Part of the speaker that produces the high frequences.

 

U

Universal Remote – Remote control that has the ability to control more than one device. They are either learnable or programmable. It eliminates the need to all the remotes out for each of the components of your home theatre system.

UHD – Ultra High Definition. It is sometimes referred to 4K

 

 

V

VESA – A common standard that is used for mounting flat panel TVs to walls

Viewing Angle – The angle in which the screen can be viewed without any loss of picture quality.

 

 

W

 

X

 

Y

 

Z