Baffled by all the technical jargon surrounding Blu-ray and high-definition formats? Don't panic, our Jargon Buster will help you understand what it all means...
24FPS
Film's native frame rate. Film is shot at 24fps (frames per second of picture), and is played back in cinemas at the same rate. Video, on the other hand, is shot and played back at either 25fps (UK) or 30fps (USA and Japan).
However, on Blu-ray, video is stored at its native 24fps rate, ensuring a much more film-like experience. TVs that can't display 24fps try to convert the signal to another format (usually 30fps), which can result in motion problems.
In terms of quality, the higher the rate the better. DVD's maximum is 5Mbit. Blu-ray's a maximum of 40 (and the now-defunct HD DVD is 29.5).
A loss of definition and visible blocks of pixels during fast-moving scenes. A spin of Transformers may illustrate the point – however, the problem is less common nowadays, but it's still sometimes seen when the TV can't keep up with the source signal.
It's so called because a violet-blue laser is used to read and write data. This laser is far more focused than the red laser used on CDs and DVDs, which enables BD discs to pack in far more digital data than their same-sized forebears.
When TV pixels aren't quick enough to respond to fast signal changes. Very similar to Smearing, blurring occurs when your TV's pixels are too slow in reacting to rapid changes in the signal they're sent. It will sacrifice definition, detail and depth of field. Plasma sets tend to be less afflicted by this problem.
Every television and projector review will give an opinion of that product's ability to reproduce colours accurately, assuming it has been set up properly (see whathifi.com/video). Some sets might be described as being muted, while others can have overblown colours.
The amount of variation between black and white levels. Poor contrast used to be a problem with flatscreen displays, and can still be a problem with poorer TVs, but on the whole, most modern sets are strong in this area – plasmas more than LCDs. A lack of contrast can mask detail in darker areas, such as in scenes from the sepia-tinted epic 300.
The relationship between loud and quiet sounds. Listen to a film soundtrack. Inevitably, some bits will be louder and others quieter. These are dynamics. The greater an AV system's dynamic ability, the more clearly you will hear the difference between loud and quiet – including the tiniest subtleties we call 'microdynamics'.
Ethernet is the widely installed local area network (LAN) technology – basically, a computer network covering a small area, such as a home or office. Specified in a standard IEEE 802.3 (the IEEE stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the network typically uses coaxial cable. Ethernet is also used in a wireless LAN – commonly termed wireless fidelity, or just Wi-fi – and is specified at IEEE 802.11.
Full high-definition, or 1080p. In theory, the latest 1080p version of high-def video (with 'p' for 'progressive scan, where every line of picture is delivered in one signal) is better than older 1080i('i' for interlaced, as used by HDTV broadcasters), but it's not a hard-and-fast rule.
Audio as the director intended it to be heard. Provided you've the right kit, film soundtracks will leap out at you in all their multichannel glory.
HD-ready sets have a minimum horizontal resolution of 720 lines, and can handle both 720p and 1080i high-definition video (as found on, say, Sky HD). You'll find some variation in the overall resolution figure in HD-ready sets: most plasmas are 1024 x 768, while most LCDs are 1366 x 768 designs.
Stands for pulse-code modulation, or, in English, uncompressed digital audio. It's the purest encoding method - there's no loss in quality, but the file sizes are well into hyper-huge territory.
For example, for a three-hour film a multichannel PCM soundtrack could require a whopping 12GB. PCM audio is found on many Blu-ray discs, either in its native form, or repackaged (digitally 'zipped'), still at high quality, using a lossless system such as Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio.
Basically, fuzzy areas in the image. This has nothing to do with sound. Rather, it refers to faint speckling that's commonly visible on large areas of a single colour.
The percussive quality to a sudden sound. If done right, it'll sound sharp and weighty, almost like a push in the gut. Punch relies on a system being able to react quickly to sudden changes in dynamics, reproducing the sound without lag or flabbiness.
Like Blurring, smearing's caused by fast motion. When the pixels don't react quickly enough, it appears as if fast-moving objects have a vapour trail streaming out behind them.
In the device's manual, 'throw' might be expressed either as a ratio of, for example, 1.8:1 – meaning 1.8ft of throw per foot of screen width (ie, for a 10ft screen width, the projector must be 18 feet away); or throw distance – 9ft of throw distance to get a 60inch wide image.
Even if you don't have a cutting-edge THX set-up, the THX Optimizer test disc will calibrate colour, tint, contrast and sharpness, as well as check speaker settings, phase and crossovers on your 5.1 surround system. See our special THX Optimizer blog to discover how to use it.
