Beginner's glossary

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Analog video: The good old video tape, usually VHS, played by a VCR.

Bar: Narrow window with icons, apps, or menu items. Often dockable.

Codec: Short for compressor/decompressor.

CPU: Short for Central Processing Unit. The processor or "brains" of your system. The faster CPU speed, the faster it can handle calculations and the faster your program will run.

Device: Any thingamajig you may connect to a computer: Mouse, keyboard, printer, digital camera, USB encoder

Digital video: Video (and audio) stored on a hard drive, cd, or dvd. MJPEG, MPEG, and WMV files are digital video.

DirectX: an application program interface developed by Microsoft for creating and managing graphic images and multimedia effects.

Dockable window: Dockable windows have two display modes: floating or docked. In floating mode, a window has a thin title bar and can appear anywhere on your screen. A floating window is always on top of all other windows. In docked mode, it is "glued" to a fixed position.

FAT32: FAT32 is the file system used by updated versions of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950.B or above). FAT32 is an enhancement of the FAT file system and is based on 32-bit file allocation table entries, rather than on the 16-bit entries the FAT file system uses. FAT32 supports much larger volumes (up to 2 terabytes), but will not accept files (that means video clips) larger than 4 MB.

File requester: A dialog box that allows users to choose a file from the file system.

Folder: A collection of files. In Windows, folders are the same as DOS directories. Folders can hold files and other folders for organizational purposes.

FPS: Frames Per Second

Frame: The basic source of a movie; one frame represents one image. A movie usually runs at 24 or 25 frames per second, equaling 24 or 25 different images per second.

GB (Gigabyte): 1,073,741,824 bytes.

Graphics card: Without this device you wouldn't be able to see anything on your screen.

HTM, HTML: HyperText Markup Language. The predominant markup language for web pages. HTML is the basic building-blocks of webpages.

Hotkey: A hotkey is a combination of keyboard strokes used to save the user some time. For example, the hotkey combination "Ctrl+V" is commonly used to paste text.

MB (Megabyte): 1,048,576 bytes.

NTFS (New Technology File System): File system used by WinNT/2000/XP. An NTFS formatted drive has no limit to the size of a video clip.

OS: Short for Operating System. The most common operating system is Windows. People with exotic tastes also use Mac and Linux. Sub machine is made for Windows only.

PAC: Subtitle file format

RAC: Subtitle file format

RAM: Short for Random Access Memory. More RAM allows you to have more documents open or work on larger, more complicated projects.

SRT: Subtitle file format

STL: Subtitle file format

Time code reader: Device for reading LTC or VITC code on a video tape

TV card: With this device you can see live video or TV on your screen. Sometimes separate card, sometimes combined with graphics card.

USB: Short for Universal Serial Bus. USB allows for connection of up to 127 devices to your PC.

USF: Subtitle file format

VCR: Video Cassette Recorder

VHS: Video Home System. This is the video tape system used in most consumer Video Casette Recorders (VCR).

Video cache: Recording and processing of video clips.

Video Card: General term for graphics cards, TV cards, and 3D cards. Some have it all, like the ATI All in Wonder Radeon.

Video clip: A digital video file.

XIF: Subtitle file format