Here you will find some DBS or other terminology used in the forum. If you would like to contribute, please post here which terms should be added.
A
- Aliasing: here
- Access Card: A card that fits in your DBS receiver and allows access to specific channels while denying access to other channels.
- AR: Aspect Ratio.
- Artifacts: Unwanted visible effects in the picture created by disturbances in the transmission or image processing
- ATSC: The Advanced Television Systems Committee, Inc. (ATSC), is an international, non-profit membership organization developing voluntary standards for the entire spectrum of advanced television systems.
- ATTC: The Advanced Television Technology Center is a private, non-profit corporation organized by members of the television broadcasting and consumer products industries to test and recommend solutions for delivery and reception of a new U.S.
- AVC : H.264 a standard for Video Compression.
- AZ/EL: Azimuth/Elevation.
B
- BBC: B-Band Converter (used by DirecTV 5lnb receivers without SWM)
- BD: Acronym for Blu-ray
- BD-R: Blu-ray writeable disc
- BD-RE: Blu-ray rewriteable
- Blockiness: here
- Bits: Short for binary digit, the smallest unit of information on a machine.
- Blu-ray: High Definition DVD format from Sony.
- Blu-ray Profiles: There are 3 "profiles" for Blu-ray players. All Blu-ray players introduced (certified) after 10/31/07 must meet the profile 1.1 specs. Profile 2 is optional. Existing profile 1.0 players may continue to be sold.
1.0
64 KB of persistent memory required
no outlining support for text based subtitles required
no SD PiP decoding required
no secondary audio decoding required
no internet capability required
1.1
64 KB of persistent memory required
256 MB of persistent memory capability required
outlining support for text based subtitles required
SD PiP decoding required
secondary audio decoding required
no internet capability required
2.0 (aka "Live")
64 KB of built in persistent memory required
1 GB of persistent memory capability required
outlining support for text based subtitles required
SD PiP decoding required
secondary audio decoding required
internet capability required - Broadcast Flag: A broadcast flag is a set of digital bits sent with a TV program to prevent digital copying of the content on the consumers end.
- BTW: By the way.
- BUD: Big Useful Dish. This is usually a large satellite dish that can be 10 feet wide and greater.
- Built-In TV Tuner: A TV that has the ability to decode and display TV signals.
C
- CATV: Cable TV.
- C-Band: This is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is used for satellite transmission. Uplink frequency is 6 GHz and downlink frequency is 4 GHz.
- CC: Closed Captioning.
- CE: Cutting Edge, a DIRECTV software testing program.
- Closed Caption on Mute: Muting the television will bring up regular Closed Captioning so that you don't miss what is being said.
- Coaxial Digital Audio Output: This is an output that uses a cable that looks similar to standard RCA cables for your audio output. However, standard RCA cables transmit 50-ohm and you should always use cables that have better signal transfer that are capable of 75-ohm or greater. This will give your audio the full amount of bandwidth it needs to have superior sound quality.
- COFDM: The standard used by many European, South American and Asian broadcasters that is competing with 8VSB.
- Comb Filter: A comb filter is used to get the most resolution possible out of digital TV sources such as DVDs and HD signals.
- Commercial Skip: This feature allows you to channel surf during commercial breaks and will bring you back to the program you were watching when the commercial break is over.
- Component Input :It has three different signals that are passed along it. The first is the Luminance signal (represented as Y) that transmits the black and white information in a signal. The second is the PB, which transmits the blue part of the signal and the third is the PR which transmits the red part of the signal. Green is not needed because it can be calculated from the three Y-PB-PR signals.
- Composite Video: A type of video signal in which all information—the red, blue, and green signals (and sometimes audio signals as well)—are mixed together.
- Contrast Ratio : This is the difference between the white portion of a screen and the black portion.
- CSR: Customer Service Representative.
- CONUS: Continental United States
- CV: Cablevision.
- CVC: Cablevision.
D
- D*: DIRECTV
- DBS: Direct Broadcast Satellite.
- DHP: Digital Home Protection plan for E* equipment.
- Digital Signal Degradation: here
- Dish On Demand: Echostars version of Video On Demand
- DLNA:Digital Living Network Alliance - a standard for sharing of digital media between consumer devices (e.g. playing video or photos from a computer on a TV set).
- DLP: Digital Light Processing is a display technology from Texas Instruments.
- DNS: Distant Network Signals
- DMA: Designated Market Area, Used by the FCC, D* & E* to determine your television market for LIL service, and by V* to determine your local channel map.
- DVB: Digital Video Broadcast.
- DTV: Digital Television.
- DTS: Digital Theater Systems sound, Discrete 5.1 and 6.1 channel surround system very similar to but not quite the same as Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital is the DTV standard, but DTS is used in the movie theaters, on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.
- DTS MA: Master Audio Sound.
- DVR: Digital Video Recorder.
- DVI: Short for Digital Visual Interface, a digital interface standard created by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG) to convert analog signals into digital signals to accommodate both analog and digital monitors. Data is transmitted using the transition minimized differential signaling (TMDS) protocol, providing a digital signal from the PC's graphics subsystem to the display. The standard specifies a single plug and connector that encompass both the new digital and legacy VGA interfaces, as well as a digital-only plug connector. DVI handles bandwidths in excess of 160 MHz and thus supports UXGA and HDTV with a single set of links. Higher resolutions can be supported with a dual set of links.
E
- E*: DISH Network (EchoStar).
- EDTV: Enhanced Definition TV.
- ECM: Electronic Counter Measure.
- EPG: Electronic Program Guide
- ESB: Empire State Building.
F
- FCC: Federal Communication Commission, they make DBS possible.
- FEC: Forward Error Correction
- FireWire: This was meant to be an enabling technology that would allow all things in your home theater to connect using this compressed digital interface. IEEE1394 (aka FireWire) makes allowances for 5C which would allow original broadcasters the ability to choose which type of copy control they want to use. The options given to broadcasters are: Allow copying; allow copying only once; or no copying allowed.
- Flat Panel: TVs that are a few inch's thick, usually LCD or Plasma.
- Format: 4 x 3 is and has been the format and aspect ratio used for Analog broadcasting. 16 x 9 is the format and aspect ratio used for Widescreen.
- FTA: Free To Air satellite television, receiving UNENCRYPTED satellite signals for audio and video.
- FYI: For your information
- FWIW: For What It's Worth
H
- HAVi : a networking standard that uses IEEE 1394, aka Firewire, as a transport. If implemented precisely, HAVi will allow devices of different brands to connect using FireWire and interoperate by sending audio, video and control information over the network. However, 1394/HAVi is not is not even close to being a standard when it comes to home audio and video!
- HD: High Definition.
- HDCP: High Definition Copy Protection.
- HD DVD: High Definition DVD one of 2 High Def DVD formats.
- HIC: Hopper Internet Connector (Dish Network equipment).
- H/J: Hopper and Joey (Dish Network equipment).
- HD-lite: HD-Lite refers to a practice started by some cable companies and DirecTV and adopted by Dish Network (on VOOM HD channels, CBS HD East as well as MPEG4 HD Locals and most MPEG4 additions) of reducing the HD picture resolution from the standard 1920x1080i to 1280x1080i, esentially losing 1/3 of the pixels. The term also applies when bitrates are lowered to the point of degrading the HDTV signal. It is also used in OTA to signify that a provider like CBS is multicasting or stealing bandwith from the HD channel to service other digital channels.
- HDMI: High-Definition Multimedia Interface. It will enable true high definition audio/video.
- HDTV: Short for High-Definition Television, a new type of television that provides much better resolution than current televisions based on the NTSC standard. There are a number of competing HDTV standards, which is one reason that the new technology has not been widely implemented. All of the standards support a wider screen than NTSC and roughly twice the resolution. To pump this additional data through the narrow TV channels, images are digitized and then compressed before they are transmitted and then decompressed when they reach the TV.
- HDVP: High-Definition Video Processor. This is a video processor that can transform your computer into a HD home entertainment system.
- HT: Home Theater.
- HTPC: Home Theater Personal Computer
I
- IEEE 1394: See FireWire.
- IMCO: In my considered opinion.
- IMHO: In My Humble Opinion.
- IMNSHO : In My Not So Humble Opinion.
- IMO: In My Opinion.
- IMPO: In my pious opinion.
- IMSHO: In My So Humble Opinion.
- Interlaced: HDTV is scanned in two different ways, one being progressive and the other being interlaced. Interlaced scanning is when the TV uses two separate passes to make an image on the TV. The first pass will display the odd horizontal lines such as 1, 3, 5, 7 and so on. On the next pass it displays the even lines such as 2, 4, 6, 8 and so on. Since this is done so fast the human eye sees this as being one picture instead of two. After the second pass the third will go back to displaying the odd lines, then even again and so on.
- IOHO: In Our Humble Opinion.
- IOW: In Other Words
- IRD: Integrated Receiver Decoder. This is your the same thing as your DSS receiver.
K
- Ku Band : is used for DBS systems and for TV interviews that happen on the street where a small dish is the ideal transmission method. These TV microwave transmission frequencies occur between 12,000 MHz and 14,000 MHz.
L
- LCPM: Linear Pulse Code Modulated Audio
- Letterbox: is the term used for watching a movie in wide screen format on a regular 4:3 aspect ratio television. This viewing format is often accompanied by a black bar on the top and bottom of the screen and a picture that is in the aspect ratio of 16:9.
- LIL : Local In To Local, The offering of local channels via satellite to subscribers.
- Line Doubler : This is simply a de-interlacer. For instance it could take a 480i picture and double it to 480p, thus taking an interlaced image to progressive. A doubler can also take a 480i image and convert it to 960i, as the 240 lines being shown in 1/60 are the same as showing 480 lines at 1/60 second. Bob is a line doubling technique that repeats the last line to create new lines. Weave is another technique that combines one half the image (here being 240 fields) with the previous or next 240 fields to create a single 480 line frame.
- Line Scaler : A scaler is a line doubler that deinterlaces the image and then scales it up to a higher resolution. Many times scalers simply scale up to the native resolution of your display.
- LMHO : Laughing my head off.
- LNB : LNB is an acronym for Low Noise Block downconverter. This is a device for satellite TV systems that takes the entire band of microwave frequencies and outputs it as lower frequencies that can be received by a compatible receiver. With DTV you can usually get one of two variations. One is a single LNB and lets you connect one IRD, while a dual LNB will allow you to connect two or more devices. However, you will need to use a multiswitch or multiplexer if you wish to connect more then two devices.
- LOS: Line of Sight.
- LOL: Laughing Out Loud.
- Lossy Compression: here
- LOTI: Laughing On The Inside.
M
- MBG: Money Back Guarantee.
- MNF: Monday Night Football.
- MPEG: Short for Moving Picture Experts Group. MPEG generally produces better-quality video than competing formats, such as Video for Windows, Indeo and QuickTime. MPEG files can be decoded by special hardware or by software. MPEG achieves high compression rate by storing only the changes from one frame to another, instead of each entire frame. The video information is then encoded using a technique called DCT. MPEG uses a type of lossy compression, since some data is removed. But the diminishment of data is generally imperceptible to the human eye. There are three major MPEG standards: MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.
- MPEG-1: The most common implementations of the MPEG-1 standard provide a video resolution of 352-by-240 at 30 frames per second (fps). This produces video quality slightly below the quality of conventional VCR videos.
- MPEG-2: MPEG-2 offers resolutions of 720x480 and 1280x720 at 60 fps, with full CD-quality audio. This is sufficient for all the major TV standards, including NTSC, and even HDTV. MPEG-2 is used by DVD-ROMs. MPEG-2 can compress a 2 hour video into a few gigabytes. While decompressing an MPEG-2 data stream requires only modest computing power, encoding video in MPEG-2 format requires significantly more processing power.
- MPEG-4: is a graphics and video compression algorithm standard that is based on MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 and Apple QuickTime technology. Wavelet-based MPEG-4 files are smaller than JPEG or QuickTime files, so they are designed to transmit video and images over a narrower bandwidth and can mix video with text, graphics and 2-D and 3-D animation layers. MPEG-4 was standardized in October 1998 in the ISO/IEC document 14496.
- MSRP : The Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.
- M/S : Multiswitch.
- MRV : Multiple Receiver Viewing (Currently supported by Directv software)
- Multicasting : This is the process of transmitting more then one program over the air at the same time on the same channel. When stations are given their channel for DTV broadcasting they are allocated a specific amount of bandwidth. If they are not using the full amount of bandwidth, they can squeeze more programs OTA through that same channel. These channels are denoted by hyphens, such as 29-1, 29-2 and so on instead of what you might be used to as one channel on 29. Some stations are broadcasting one SDTV and one HDTV channel without much picture quality loss in the High Definition program.
- Multipath : Multipath happens when an incoming signal is bounced off of buildings, trees, cars, and other solid objects. This was where ghost images came from when watching regular analog TV. Instead of getting one signal from the direct source, you would be getting multiple signals that took more time bouncing around before it reached you.
- MUX: Abbreviation for multiplexing. The process of putting several channels on one data stream.
N
- Native Resolution : Usually describes the actual resolution of the display device. If you see native resolution used with LCD, DLP, dILA or Plasma, this will be an exact number. With CRTs, this number is an approximation. Either way, if you see a Max Resolution for the display device, your device will simply scale the image down to it's native resolution. See Scaling / Doubling for more information on that subject.
- NC/NS : no call /no show
- NLOS : no line of sight.
- NTSC: Short for National Television System Committee. The NTSC is responsible for setting television and video standards in the United States.(in Europe and the rest of the world, the dominant television standards are PAL and SECAM).
O
- O&O: Own and Operated
- OOM: Out Of Market
- OAR: Original Aspect Ratio.
- OMG: Oh My God! (Internet slang)
- OverLoad: here
- Optical Digital Audio Output: This is a fiber output that uses a Digital Optical Audio cable to transmit audio from a DVD Player or Receiver to a receiver, television, or amplifier.
- OverLoad: here
- OTA: Over the Air.
P
- PAL: Phase Alternation Line (PAL) is the analog television display used in Europe. PAL is one of three main standards along with NTSC and SECAM. One of the main differences in NTSC and PAL is that PAL scans the cathode ray tube 625 times as opposed to the 525 scan lines of an NTSC broadcast, which improves the image quality a tiny bit. Color variations exist between the two as well.
- Picture-In-Picture (PIP): This is the capability of a television to display multiple video streams on the same monitor. Many manufactures do this slightly differently, but the resulting effect is that you can watch two programs at the same time.
- Pixel: Short for Picture Element, a pixel is a single point in a graphic image. Graphics monitors display pictures by dividing the display screen into thousands (or millions) of pixels, arranged in rows and columns. The pixels are so close together that they appear connected.
- PG: Program Guide.
- PP: Program Planner.
- PQ: Picture Quality.
- PROGRESSIVE: HDTV is scanned in two different ways, one being progressive and the other being interlaced. Progressive scanning is done the way you would expect a TV image to be shown. Each horizontal line is displayed right after the previous one. The lines are scanned in order from top to bottom so that it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on. This means the image is displayed in one pass instead of two as it is done with interlaced scanning.
- PSIP: Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is data that is transmitted along with a station's DTV signal that tells DTV receivers important information about the station and what is being broadcast. The most important function of PSIP is to provide a method for DTV receivers to identify a DTV station and to determine how a receiver can tune to it. PSIP identifies both the DTV channel and the associated NTSC (analog) channel. It helps maintain the current channel branding because DTV receivers will electronically associate the two channels making it easy for viewers to tune to the DTV station even if they do not know the channel number. In addition to identifying the channel number, PSIP tells the receiver whether multiple program channels are being broadcast and, if so, how to find them. It identifies whether the programs are closed captioned, conveys V-chip information, if data is associated with the program, and much more. If broadcasters do not include properly encoded PSIP data in their DTV signals, receivers may not correctly identify and tune to the station. Therefore, it is vital that all broadcasters understand PSIP and include the data in their DTV stations signals. PSIP is a mandatory Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Standard.
- PTAT: Primetime Anytime: a feature in the Hopper system (offered by Dish Network) that records all 4 Broadcast Networks during primetime hours on a single tuner.
- PVR: Personal Video Recorder (Tivo Trademark).
- PULL DOWN: 3:2 Pulldown is the process of transferring film to video. Film is natively shot at 24 frames per second while video is 30 frames, or 60 fields per second. 3:2 Pulldown, in the simplest explanation, changes four frames of film to ten frames of video. Although it may sound simple, this is a fairly complicated process that results in a fairly clean video format conversion. See 'Reverse 3:2 Pulldown' for the reverse of this process.
Q
- QAM : Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. This is an efficient way of transferring binary data over cable. It is used for multiple dwelling unit installations. They set up a few LNB dishes and send the output to a QAM converter rack. Then they send the signals into the cable entering the apartment building. The people wanting to receive these signals connect their satellite receiver to the cable and they can then receive satellite TV. The downfalls are that mostly everyone working for the satellite company knows nothing about it. Also, misalignment of a dish will affect everyone and you probably don't have direct access to re-align that dish.
- QPSK : The type of modulation D*, E* and V* uses in their satellite transmissions.
- Quantisation Noise : here
R
- RGB Monitor: Short for red, green, blue monitor, a monitor that requires separate signals for each of the three colors. This differs from color televisions, for example, which use composite video signals, in which all the colors are mixed together.
- ROFL: Rolling On the Floor Laughing.
- ROFLASTC : Rolling On The Floor Laughing And Scaring The Cat.
- ROFLMAO: Rolling On the Floor Laughing My A** Off.
- ROFLMBO : Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Butt Off.
- ROFLPMP : Rolling On The floor laughing, peeing my pants!
S
- SA*: Sky Angel, a religious former DBS provider whose main service was at the same 61.5w location as V*, now serving subscribers via the Internet.
- Screen Door Effect: When you can see the grid or space between the pixals, It looks like you are viewing the image through a screen door.
- SD: Standard Definition.
- S/L: Slave Line
- SM: Service Menu.
- S/PDIF: Short for Sony/Philips Digital Interface, a standard audio file transfer format. Developed jointly by the Sony and Phillips corporations, S/PDIF allows the transfer of digital audio signals from one device to another without having to be converted first to an analog. format. Maintaining the viability of a digital signal prevents the quality of the signal from degrading when it is converted to analog.
- STB: Set Top Box.
- Sticky Thread: A thread that has been stuck by a Staff member. A thread that is stuck is at the top of the forum, regardless of the date when it was posted. Threads are stuck to provide more information and to be more visable than a normal thread.
- Stretch-o-Vision A.k.a. FlexView - a non-linear image stretching technology developed by Teranex and utilized by TNT-HD and some other HD channels. It allows a 4x3 formatted video to fill the entire 16x9 frame in such a way that objects at the left and right edges are more distorted than the objects in the center of the screen.
- SQ: Sound Quality.
- SUB: Subscriber.
- SVGA: Short for Super VGA, a set of graphics standards designed to offer greater resolution than VGA. SVGA supports 800 x 600 resolution, or 480,000 pixels.The SVGA standard supports a palette of 16 million colors, but the number of colors that can be displayed simultaneously is limited by the amount of video memory installed in a system.
- S-Video: Short for Super-Video, a technology for transmitting video signals over a cable by dividing the video information into two separate signals: one for color (chrominance), and the other for brightness (luminance). When sent to a television, this produces sharper images than composite video , where the video information is transmitted as a single signal over one wire. This is because televisions are designed to display separate Luminance (Y) and Chrominance (C) signals. (The terms Y/C video and S-Video are the same.)
- SWM: Single Wire Multiswitch (DirecTV 5 lnb switch that feeds DVRs with one wire. Available in an external switch, or built-in to an LNB. Supports 8 tuners in any combination.
- SWM-line: Another name for the DirecTV LNB w/ built-in SWM.
- SXGA: SXGA is a display resolution measuring 1280 pixels horizontally by 1024 pixels vertically giving a total display resolution of 1,310,720 individual pixels. SXGA has a 5:4 aspect ratio.
T
- The Gibbs Effect (Mosquito Noise): here
- TosLink: Toslink optical cable (also known as EIA-J) is a fiber optic digital audio cable that carries digital audio data in the form of light pulses, rather than using electricity. This optical cable can eliminate some of the distortions caused by imperfections of inductance, capacitance and resistance in some copper based cables. Toslink optical cables can be use with digital Audio inputs and/or outputs are common on many newer Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound receivers, DVD players, CD players, cable boxes, MP3 and DAT recorders, outboard AD/DA Converters and satellite dish receivers. The Premium Toslink optical cable is compatible with all S/PDIF, ADAT's, and Dolby Digital or DTS audio devices that use the Toslink interface.
- TP: -(Also TR) Transponder, a set of frequencies on a satellite similiar to a Television Channel. DBS Transponders normally are 13-14MHz wide (TV channels are 6MHz wide).
- TWC: Time Warner Cable.
V
- V*: VOOM a former DBS provider from Rainbow broadcasting.
- VC-1: An Advanced Video Codec
- VCR: Video Cassette Recorder.
- VGA: Abbreviation of video graphics array, a graphics display system for PCs developed by IBM. In text mode, VGA systems provide a resolution of 720 by 400 pixels. In graphics mode, the resolution is either 640 by 480 (with 16 colors) or 320 by 200 (with 256 colors). The total palette of colors is 262,144. VGA uses analog signals rather than digital signals.
- VOD: Video On Demand
- VHF: Very High Frequency.
U
- UHF: Ultra High Frequency
- WXGA: WXGA defines a class of XGA displays with a width resolution sufficient to create an aspect ratio of 16:9. Resolution is defined by the number of pixels that a display uses to create an image. A WXGA display has 1366 to 1280 pixels horizontally and 768 to 720 pixels vertically.
- XGA: XGA is a display resolution measuring 1024 pixels horizontally and 768 pixels vertically giving a total display resolution of 786,432 individual pixels. XGA has a 4:3 aspect ratio
- XStream: A New High Quaility premium satellite delivery service scheduled to start April 1st, 2010.
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