You shouldn't need to know all these terms unless you want to. I've included many terms that I may use in my posts or that you might see elsewhere.
1080i/1080p/720p - These are 3 common signal types referred to as High Definition. 720p means there are 720 lines of information going across the screen, so 1080p means 1,080 lines. The p means they go progressively from top to bottom, as opposed to i which stands for interlaced. With interlacing, you are really only getting 1/2 the number of lines at any given time, so if you see 1080i don't confuse it for being betting than 720p. It's worse. DVDs generally have only about 400 lines of data. Except on very large screens or with very small text most people cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.
Anamorphic Widescreen - Digital video sources can have two resolutions. The source resolution is the number of pixels of information used to represent the image horizontally and vertically. This number may be different than the display resolution, which is the ratio of horizontal to vertical that the video image should be displayed at. When a video is stored anamorphically it means that the source must be scaled to be viewed correctly, so the resolution of the image may be 640x480 but it should be displayed at 720x400. Watching at the source resolution would look distorted.
Boxee - A device that can connect to your TV or Home Theater and play media files from local storage or local network, as well as various internet sources. Also exists as software to run on a PC. http://www.boxee.tv/
CDDB - Original name for Gracenote.
Client - A client generally refers to the software or hardware that is receiving a stream. The client is responsible for rendering (or playing) the stream. Player, Media Player, Media Client are often used synonymously. The term often refers to the device itself, but can also refer to the software running on the device.
Cloud - There is a lot of technology behind "Cloud Computing," but what it boils down to when someone says something is "in the cloud" is that it is stored somewhere other than your own computer. You cannot access it unless you are connected to the internet. Nice for accessing the data from multiple locations, not nice when you don't have a connection. A cloud is usually a system of hardware and software spread around the globe working together to provide quick response time and redundancy, but to the user it amounts to data being "elsewhere."
Codec - A "codec" is a term made from the words "compressor" and "decompressor" and refers to the software used to compress (or "encode") the stream and also decompress (or "decode") the stream.
Device - This is a generic term for an piece of electronics. An XBox 360 and an iPod are both devices, as is your desktop computer.
DLNA - Stands for "Digital Living Network Alliance" which is a group of companies that collaborate to create standards and protocols for networks media devices to work together. Most commonly refers to the protocol used between many Media Servers and Media Clients to select and play media. It works on top of the uPnP protocol and the specification restricts what types of files can be played.
Encoding - Encoding is a general term referring to the process of changing the format of media (audio or video) into another format. This usually involves a compression algorithm being applied and can be lossy, so that each time a file is encoded, the quality is reduced.
Flash - Refers to Adobe Flash, but in the context of video streaming generally refers to FLV files.
FLV - This is the Flash Video format and is the format used by YouTube and Amazon Instant Videos.
Google TV - Google's entry to the Media Client market. Google TV is software built into devices such as the Logitech Revue and some Sony TVs and Blu-Ray players. It supports Netflix and uPnP/DLNA protocols.
Gracenote - An internet database of information about CDs. Tools exist to identify CDs and retrieve information about the song titles and other metadata. http://www.gracenote.com/
H.264 - A very popular codec for video content, from the MPEG group.
Handbrake - A free program for ripping and encoding video content.
HDMI - HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface and generally refers to the connectors and cables used to connect device. An HDMI cable carries both digital video and digital audio signals, so only one connector is required.
HTPC - stands for Home Theater Personal Computer and refers to hooking up a Windows or Mac computer to a home theatre system. These computers are specially designed to be small and quiet. Most commonly these run either Microsoft's Windows Media Center or XBMC.
Hulu - Hulu is a service that provides some streaming video content over the internet. A separate service called Hulu Plus provides different content but at a monthly subscription rate.
IMDB - Internet Movie Database is an online database (owned by Amazon.com) which has descriptive information about nearly all films and television shows ever made. Some tools exist that can access the information from IMDB and store it with your own media files or display it on screen as you browse. However, the information may be subject to copyright so many tools use TMDb.
iTunes - Apple uses the name iTunes to describe a few different things, but primarily it is the application that runs on your computer that stores media and applications for your Apple devices, such as AppleTV, iPods, iPads, etc. The iTunes application can rip CDs (but not DVDs), so you can convert your CD collection to digital media (I recommend changing to settings to store them as MP3 files). There is also the iTunes Store where you can purchase songs or videos and also rent videos. Content in iTunes can be streamed to an AppleTV device.
Media Client - A Media Client connects to a Media Server to retrieve and play media files. See definitions for Client.
Media Player - See Media Client.
Media Server - A Media Server is a computer or other device that stores media and makes it available to Media Clients. It is common to use uPnP and DLNA protocols, but may use other protocols such as HTTP and MMS.
Metadata - refers to ancillary information about a media file, such as the Title, Description, year it was made and still pictures or thumbnails. It is often album cover art or movie posters and can exist in several forms, sometimes embedded in the media file itself, store in a separate file (as XML or NFO file) or in a separate database (as with XBMC).
M4V - A video media format that uses the Quicktime (MOV) container but usually contains MPEG-4 encoded streams.
MP3 - This is a file format used to encode audio files. It is short for MPEG-3.
MPEG - An acronym for the group that defined the file format and compression standard, Moving Picture Experts Group, MPEG may refer to MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-3 or MPEG-4, which all have slightly different uses. It refers to a codec as well as a container format. In simple terms it is a file format for video files.
Muxing - Muxing refers to the process of integrating multiple streams of media (such as Audio and Video streams) so that they can be streamed together. (the opposite, demuxing, would refer to separating the different streams).
Netflix - Currently the most popular commercial service for streaming movies and TV shows over the internet. It requires a monthly subscription fee and allows unlimited streaming (although, the number of simultaneous streams and connected devices is limited). An excellent feature of Netflix streaming is the ability to stream as a variable data rate to adjust to the quality of your internet connection.
NFO - NFO files can contain metadata for media files. Unfortunately, various tools create files with the NFO extension but are not compatible. Most common are .NFO files defined by XBMC which can be read by other Media Clients and Servers, but Roksbox reads NFO files generated by a program called Thumbgen and NFO files are often just plain text files with miscellaneous information no applications can understand.
PlayOn - PlayOn is a set of commercial products including a Media Server and several Media Clients that run on many different devices. Among other things, they have DLNA servers for local network streaming and players for Netflix and Hulu that run on XBOX, PS3 and other devices.
PS3 aka Playstation 3 - A game console from Sony that also works as a Media Client and Blu-Ray player. Sources say the uPnP protocol was developed specifically for streaming to the PS3.
Quicktime - Quicktime is a container file format developed by Apple (MOV files). Quicktime Player is an Apple client that can play Quicktime files, as well as many other formats, and many Media Clients are capable of playing Quicktime files. However, a the data in a quicktime file may be encoded with many different formats (codecs) and not all Media Clients support the same set of codecs.
Ripping - The process of capturing media files from optical media, such as a CD or DVD. Files may be ripped and encoded at the same time to create playable files, or the encoding may happen in a separate process.
Roksbox - Roksbox is a commercial application for Roku players that allows playing of media from a media server. Works over HTTP so most desktop computers do not need to add any software to act as a Media Server for Roksbox.
Roku - A very small, inexpensive device designed for the primary purpose of streaming videos. Works with Netflix, Amazon Instant Videos, Hulu Plus, Roksbox and hundreds of other special interest sources. YouTube is available through a private channel.
Silverlight - Silverlight is a technology owned by Microsoft. It is similar to Adobe Flash and is used by Netflix for streaming movies.
SMB/Samba - This is a form of file sharing used by Microsoft operating systems. Mac and Linux also have support for SMB but only with non-default settings. Devices like the Boxee and WD TV Live can access data on SMB shares.
Streaming - Refers to progressively downloading of media files and playing simultaneously. By streaming, you are not required to download the entire media content before you begin viewing, and what you have already watched or listen to may or may not be stored locally.
The Movie Database/TMDb - An internet database of feature films, maintained by the community. This can be used by various tools to find metadata for digital media. http://www.themoviedb.org/
Transcoding - This refers to the process of encoding media files "on the fly" as they are streamed to a device. A sophisticated Media Server can support many devices, each of which requires different containers, codecs or data rates, by transcoding the information as it streams. However, this can be highly CPU intensive.
TVDB - An internet database of television shows, maintained by the community. This can be used by various tools to find metadata for digital media. http://thetvdb.com/
TVersity - A Media Server for Windows platform that supports uPnP/DLNA. http://tversity.com/
TVMobili - A Media Server for Mac, Windows and Linux that supports uPnP/DLNA. http://www.tvmobili.com/
uPnP - A networking protocol that allows devices to find each other on a local network. Must be supported by routers in the network. A protocol called uPnP A/V was a predecessor to DLNA, which provided several layers of protocols for the general purpose of telling a device where to access content. DLNA limits the types of content that can be transferred.
USB - USB (Universal Serial Bus) is a type of physical connection. While it is used to directly connect all kinds of devices (printers, scanners, cameras) in this world it mostly refers to storage devices (portable hard drives or thumb drives) that contain media files. Some Media Player devices support connecting USB storage and playing the content on the drives.
Widescreen - Refers to the ratio of the width of a video image relative to the height of the image. If the ratio is greater than 4 to 3, it is considered Widescreen, with 16:9 (aka 1.77:1) and 2.35:1 being popular choices. Widescreen sources often have lower resolution than full screen (4:3) because to obtain the wider ratio the height is reduced (as opposed to increasing the width). Most widescreen televisions are 16:9, but you should still see black bars across the top and bottom when watching a movie that is in 2.35:1. Also, see Anamorphic Widescreen.
Windows Media Center - Microsoft's solution for HTPCs. It is an application that is used to browse and play local and streamed media.
Windows Media Services - Something proprietary from Microsoft. Can stream over the internet to other clients using proprietary protocols.
Wii - A game console from Nintendo which can stream videos from Netflix and YouTube.
WMA - A file format used by Microsoft Windows for audio. Allows for copy protection.
WMA - A file format used by Microsoft Windows for audio. Allows for copy protection.
WMV - A file format used by Microsoft Windows for video. Allows for copy protection.
XBMC - An open source development Media Client and Media Server rolled into one. XBMC maintains a database of metadata that can be used by other Media Clients and Media Servers. Commonly used with a HTPC it runs on Windows, Mac or Linux. http://xbmc.org/
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