Collide Magazine

Tech Language for Dummies: Video

Daniel Darnell - Originally posted Wednesday, July 30, 2008

If you’re like me, sometimes in your attempt to stay up-to-date with technology and church trends you find yourself more confused and lost than enlightened. So we are hear to shed some light on your confusion and enlighten you on all things tech. Now you can join the water cooler conversations, throw your IT guys for a loop, or actually converse with your children (if you have any). Some of these may seem elementary while others may seem like cuss words. All in all, you should leave here a little more informed and ready to tackle the world of technology.

Video Edition

HDTV
I just recently helped my parents purchase an HDTV and boy was it a nightmare! As soon as I went to Best Buy’s website I was overwhelmed by how many different types of HDTVs there are. Before I went any further, I needed to know more about that product I was about to purchase. First, there are three major types of HDTVs out there currently: LCD, Plasma, and DLP.

• LCD – The most popular type of HDTV, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs have a great range in sizes, prices, and manufactures giving the user numerous choices. LCDs are thin, bright, and have a very high resolution compared to Plasmas, however their black levels (how dark the TV can get) and fast motion are still lacking. If you’re looking for a cheap, bright, small-to-medium sized TV, then an LCD is for you.
• Plasma – The leader in HDTV quality, Plasma TVs still have a better overall image quality than the others. They use a gas that is electrified to create the rich, colorful images and the deep blacks. Plasma screen sizes start at 42 inches and can get huge, making them more expensive than LCDs. The two biggest concerns with Plasma is an image “burning in” to the screen and the life span of the gas. Both of these have been improved greatly, but are still threats to the cheaper versions. Overall, they have a better image but only come in large sizes.
• DLP – This technology developed by Texas Instruments (just down the street from our offices) is found in very large rear projection TVs and digital projectors. DLP allows for very large screens for fairly cheap, however they aren’t as thin as the flat screens. The biggest issue is that the backlight bulb burns out every couple of years, costing you more money to replace them. If you’re looking for a very large TV and don’t want to fork out the cash for a plasma or LCD, then DLP is the way to go.

Once you figure out which type of TV you want, then you need to figure out what resolution you are looking for. As you look at the product specs you usually see way too many number to make sense, but these numbers are of great importance: 720p, 1080i, 1080p. Basically speaking, this is how they refer to the pixel count on the TV. 720p is 1,280x720 pixels where 1080p is 1,920x1080 pixels. The more pixels, the clearer and sharper the image is. However, there is one little letter that is of great significance on the end of these numbers. You’ll either see an ‘i’ or a ‘p’ following the resolution number, standing for interlaced and progressive, respectively. An interlaced display scans every other line on the screen every 60th of a second, basically displaying only half an image at a time. Progressive displays scan from top to bottom, filling the entire screen instantly. Though our eyes honestly can’t tell the difference most of the time, experts say progressive is better.

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I could go into a lot more detail on HDTV’s but you can find all of this on the web by searching "HDTV". Moving on.

Analog vs Digital
So there’s a lot of hype about the U.S. national transition from analogue to Digital this coming February, but why are we being forced to change to this new format? Analog has been around sense this whole technology thing started. Think of analog as a continuous, fluid line where digital is a discrete, jumpy line. Analog is simple and inexpensive to make, yet the signal has size limitations, leaving us stuck at this point in time. Digital is more complicated and expensive, but a much higher quality and the signal size is much larger. Digital signals are basically a binary coed of 1s and 0s (on and off), which allows for a lot more information to be crammed into a smaller space, leading to more features and capabilities. However, a digital signal is not an HD signal, though a lot digital channels now broadcast in HD. You must have an HDTV to see the HD signal, but you can have a basic TV to see a digital signal.

DVD vs Blu-Ray
DVDs changed the way we watched video, bringing amazing quality to such a small medium, not to mention it couldn’t be “eaten” by your VCR. But as digital video has become even more hi-definition, DVDs couldn’t cut it with only 4.7 GB of storage. So the war broke out between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray to create an even better medium. Eventually Blu-Ray won out because most of the movie studios chose the format over HD-DVD. Blu-Ray uses a smaller, blue laser, as compared to DVD’s larger red laser, to read the disc image, allowing for 50GB is space, nearly ten times as much as a DVD. More storage space means higher definition, which means better image and sound quality. But to get the best image quality, you need to use an HDMI cable to transfer the data, which is a high-speed digital cable that can trans all the information needed without any data loss. Blu-Ray player will cost you a pretty penny now ($400), but in a few years will be as cheap as DVD players.

Digital Video File Formats
When it comes to digital video on your computer, there are many different file formats out there, varying in size, quality, and compatibility. Here’s the quick low-down:

• Mpeg-1– A standardized compression format that allows for smaller file sized while keep the quality at a medium level.
• WMV – Windows Media Video is another compression format developed by Windows and uses the Windows Media Player.
• H.264 - A higher quality compression format that is basically an MPEG-4. This one is used by Apple’s QuickTime player.
• MOV – Another Apple QuickTime file format that is nearly full quality but is a very large file size.
• AVI - Audio Video Interleave is an original file format introduced by Windows that is similar to a .mov file in size and quality, but lacks future support of newer file types.

DVR
A DVR is a Digital Video Recorder and basically explains itself. It is basically one big hard drive built into you cable/satellite system that allows you to digitally record TV. Just think of it as the new VCR, but instead of using tapes it uses a hard drive. This allows for higher quality images and no tapes, which means your VCR or dog can’t eat it and destroy Sunday’s game.

This is a lot of information, I know. If you’re still confused, then one of the best resources for all of these subjects is CNET.com.

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