Tech Glossary: HDTV's

You probably know by now that HD stands for High Definition, but what about all of those other terms people are tossing around?

1080p/1080i + 720p/720i - I'm going to breeze right over this one. A higher number means a more detailed, sharper image. "p" stands for progressive scan, and "i" stands for interlaced. Progressive scan is better than interlaced in terms of visual quality. If you want a more detailed explanation, you can find one here.

Contrast Ratio/Dynamic Contrast Ratio - Contrast ratio is basically a measurement of the range between the lightest and darkest colors displayed on the screen. The larger the ratio, the brighter the brights, the darker the darks. If what your are reading says simply "Contrast Ratio" without "Dynamic", they mean the ratio of just what's capable of being displayed at the same time on screen. Dynamic Contrast Ratio is used to describe televisions where the entire screen adjusts its brightness level, and compares the darkest possible black to the brightest possible white, but those two will never be visible at the same time.

What it means to you: A fixed contrast ratio is the easier to interpret. Small numbers mean that the image on the screen will look a little faded or washed out. Blacks will glow or appear dark grey. Large numbers mean more realistic images, with truer colors. Dynamic contrast ratios really mean nothing to you as a consumer, and manufacturers will not post the meaningful ratios on the outside if they have Dynamic Contrast Ratio listed. They are intended to sound impressive without actually meaning anything about quality(like megapixels when buying a camera). You could ask to see the manuals, or you could simply just look at the display and form your own opinion of the image quality. Look at the black areas on the images, if they are dark enough for you and you can still make out everything else on the screen, that's all you really need. Ignore the numbers.

NTSC/ATSC
NTSC is the "old" analog tv signals that just disappeared from the airways, but are still being sent to your non-HD TV's from the cable/satellite companies. ATSC is the new digital signal. Any HD TV will definitely accept ATSC, and should certainly still accept NTSC, which is important if you don't plan on abandoning your VCR or DVD player anytime soon. Chances are very good that you won't need to be concerned with this for a few more years at least, as it is standard for HD TV's to accept both signals. If you are planning on buying a TV Tuner for your computer, however, you will need to remember this.

HDMI/Component/DVI
These are the commonly accepted inputs for transferring an HD signal to your TV. The main distinction here is that HDMI also sends audio across the same cable, while Component and DVI transmit only video. Technically, component is made up of 3 cables(red, green, and blue) plus whatever audio cables you need(usually the red and white RCA cables), but they tend to sell these as a single cable. There are differences in the video quality across these different cables, but if you are starting off with this guide, chances are good that any of the three would be perfect for you.
-Coax/Composite
These are the old standards of cables for your Standard Definition TV's. Any HD TV will have at least 1 coax(the round, black cord with a single pin in the middle that needs to be screwed in), and many include composite(the red, white and yellow plugs). Having these will be important if you plan on hooking up anything that's not brand new, such as a VCR, DVD player that's a few years old, or any video game consoles from more than a couple years ago. If you have your cable plugged into your HD TV via coax, there are some things to note, which I've mentioned below.

Plasma/LCD(+LED)/DLP/(AM)OLED
The two most common types of HD TV are Plasma and LCD. Plasma's will generally have better contrast ratios and truer motion than LCD and tend to cost more as a result. To address some of the pitfalls of LCD(poor contrast ratios, motion and brightness) some manufacturers are adding Light-Emitting-Diodes to the LCD TV's as a backlight which helps address some of these issues. Pricing for these generally falls between standard LCD's and Plasmas and so does the image quality. These may be marketed only as "LED" TV's but in truth, they are still LCD's, just enhanced. If you are looking for a large TV, 50 inches or larger, DLP is another option. These will not be TV's that you mount to you wall, but rather take up some floor space. They tend to be cheaper than plasmas in the same range, and have a good-quality image. At the time of writing this, any TV with "OLED" in the description is too expensive for anyone, this includes "AMOLED" as well. If future years, they may be priced more reasonably, and I may revisit this topic and speak more on them then.

Noteworthy:
-Garbage in: Garbage out - Unless you have an entirely HD package through your cable or satellite service, you will notice that some channels look horrible on your new TV. They might not be broadcast in HD, so the image quality will be poorer by comparison to everything else. Likewise, if you use coax(the screw on cable) or composite(red, white, yellow) as your inputs, the image quality will not be HD. It's no fault of the TV in these cases, it's just something that you will notice and have to accept with the purchase of your HD TV.
-Network features(Netflix/Youtube/Amazon + Media Extenders) - A number of new TV's have some added features that make use of your internet connection. If you are a Netflix subscriber, you may already be aware of their Watch Instantly feature, where you can watch their movies through their website without the DVD's. Some TV's(and Blu-Ray players) allow you to view your Watch Instantly Queue through the TV, so if you use Netflix, or were planning to, this might be a feature that is worth consideration. In addition to Netflix streaming, many models include access to YouTube or even Amazon's online movie rental service. If that appeals to you, you have some options to look for in your TV purchase. Others allow you to access videos that you may have on your computer through the network. Chances are good that setting up that feature will be a fairly intensive process, so don't expect the world of that feature unless you're willing to put in some significant legwork.
-Upscaling/Upconverting - This is a good feature to look for if you want to get some extra life out of your non-HD gadgets that are hooked up to your TV. This is the process of improving an SD signal to an approximation of an HD signal. It won't look as good as a true HD signal, but it will look better than a non-upscaled SD signal, and for many, that's good enough.
-Refresh Rates - This is simply how many times in 1 second the screen can change the image being displayed. This is important especially on LCD TV's as they can tend to have a ghosting effect, where an image fades away when it should simply disappear instantly. A high refresh
rate will eliminate or greatly reduce the ghosting effect found on
LCD's. Plasma TV's don't usually have a problem with ghosting, so their
refresh rates are not typically advertised.

Tech Glossary: Video Games

The Consoles:
First off, what is a console? Originally, the definition for this was a lot easier: a device designed to play video games. As the technology has improved over the last few years, video game consoles can do a lot more, and to further complicate matters, other devices can play video games as well. The question now is what the device's primary purpose is. A cell phone is a cell phone is a cell phone, but even if it can play games, it's still a cell phone and not a console. The three main consoles people will discuss nowadays are the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3 and the Wii. These are all primarily designed to play video games. There are other portable gaming systems, such as the Playstation Portable or the Nintendo DS, which are intended for handheld use, but these are not consistently called consoles. There's no rhyme or reason to when they are considered consoles or not. It may depend on your zodiac sign, or Jupiter's moon cycles. The point is, if you call one a console, you may get a raised eyebrow, or you may not, and that will be the extent of it. Don't worry about it.

Genres:
RPG: This stands for Role Playing Game. These are games where the player creates a character and tries to develop them in various ways of their choosing. Players can often become invested in their characters and for this reason RPG's are notorious for being some of the most addicting games out there. There are a number of acronyms out there describing basically that they can be played online with other players. MMO, MMPORG, etc. Don't worry about remembering what they all mean, just recognize them as being online games with lots of other people. Stories are frequently Fantasy or Science Fiction in nature.

FPS: First Person Shooter. There's a gun on the screen, and a hand holding it. That's your character. You've got a first-person view of the action, and a lot of targets. Storyline is often seen as optional, especially if the game itself is really fun, but sometimes it can really help you to get into your character's head. These are typically very action-oriented and predominantly based on actual wars, or futuristic settings.

Platform. These games involve a lot of jumping. Some are more precise than others, but the one thing that's fairly consistent is that you don't want to miss your jump by falling short.

Side-scroller. You won't see as many of these games on non-portable systems anymore. Side scrolling basically means the the levels are predominantly laid out in a long, left-to-right manner where you are always looking at your character from the side. As the player advances, the screen scrolls with them, moving the "camera" to view more of the level, while the character stays pretty much in the center of the screen.

Sandbox/Open-ended. These games are growing in popularity. Whereas most games have a guided progression of gameplay, sandbox games let you decided what you want to do, and where you want to go. "The story can wait, I really want to explore this one area..." The most famous(infamous?) games in this genre include the Grand Theft Auto series.

That should be enough to get you started, be sure to check back later for more Tech Glossary terms.

Tech Glossary: Online Video

We've all heard of YouTube, and may have even watched a video on it. We're hearing more and more about other sites like Hulu and want to know more about watching videos online, but the lingo may sound a bit intimidating. Here are a handful of words you may come across when looking for videos online:

Streaming: basically, this means that your computer is playing the video directly from the website it's on, and not being stored on your computer. It's not a get-now-watch-later situation. The pro is that it doesn't take up any space on your computer, the con is that you generally need a really good connection to watch video this way without interruption.

Buffering: speaking of interruptions, this is the standard way of dealing with slower, or less reliable connections. A buffer is basically a way to give your computer a head-start. If the video is a high quality, your network connection is slow, or some combination of the two is happening, the time it takes to get the video is longer than the actual video itself. A good analogy for watching a video online is like rolling a matchbox car downhill. It won't make it down on the pavement, so you have to lay track down for it. The speed that you can lay down track is like your network speed, and the speed of the matchbox car is the video's playback speed. If you started laying track at the same time as releasing the car, you would have to stop a lot. Buffering gives you enough time to lay down the track before letting the car go, hopefully enough time to let the car make it all the way down without stopping.

Torrents: some of you may come across this term if you are looking for a particular video online. A Torrent is a way of "packaging" a video to download to your computer. You'll need a program that can handle torrent files(BitTorrent, or the browser Opera, are a couple of the more popular options). There's more to these files than I've explained, but this is enough to let you use them.

Codecs: These are like instructions for your computer to assemble the video. If a video was made using a certain codec, your computer will need that same codec to make sense of the video. There are a number of codecs out there, but if you have Flash, DivX, and QuickTime(iTunes) installed, chances are good that you won't have a problem playing videos because of a codec problem.

Another thing to be aware of is the legality of watching videos online. If the videos you watch have commercials in them, chances are fair that it's a legal way to view them. Torrents are frequently used illegally, but not always, so if you have moral objections to watching videos illegally, you're better off avoiding torrents. If you do choose to watch videos illegally, chances are very good that nothing will happen to you, but your computer faces a greater risk of infection from malicious software should you go that route. I'm not going to advise you how to better protect yourself in those situations, as that's a form of encouragement. If you're not very adventurous, but are still curious about viewing videos online, stick with sites such as YouTube and Hulu. YouTube does a pretty good job of making sure the videos on their site have their owner's permission to be there, and Hulu only has videos that are supported by the studios that own them. There are plenty of other sites out there, but these two are pretty low-risk for the uninitiated.

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Portable Players

It used to be that everything was a "walkman". Then came portable CD Players. There were even a few MiniDisc players out there, but all in all, you knew what each of them were, and what to call them. Now, there are Portable Video Players, Portable Media Players, MP3 Players, Digital Audio Players, IPods, some of them play this but not that, some of them need memory cards: it's very hard to keep up with all the terminology and technology.

Digital Audio Player - This is any device that plays audio from a digital source, such as a file on your computer. This term applies to every digital audio player, and not just the portable ones. Some of these may be designed to be added to your home entertainment center, or they may be smaller than your wallet.

Audio Files - WMA, MP3, AAC, OGG, etc These are all examples of different audio file formats. MP3 is probably the most popular format, and allows you unrestricted use. Studios are often a little concerned about formats without Digital Rights Management(A feature of certain file formats that restricts how and where you can access the file), so rather than selling songs in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis(OGG) files, they group up with Microsoft and release them in WMA, or Apple and their AAC files, which have DRM. Chances are good if a player can handle a specific type of DRM file, they can handle MP3s as well. It doesn't always work the other way around.

Portable Video Player - Any device that can play video files falls under this category. Like audio files, there are a number of different formats for video. I won't go into a lot of detail on this, but the most common formats are WMV, AVI, DivX, XviD, and Mpeg-4(MP4).

Portable Media Player - This has multiple functions, often meaning it will handle both Audio and Video files.

IPod - You've head this term, you've seen the commercials. If you still don't know what exactly it is or does, hopefully this will clear things up for you. Ipod is a brand name device, made by Apple. Every one of them will play audio files, and depending on the model, video files as
well. They are easy on the eyes, and generally considered to be the easiest to use of portable players(of any type). They have other features as well, but that's the gist of it.

Now, this all should be considered just a cursory guide to the terms, and not as a suggestion on what to buy. Hopefully now you can at least know what to ask the clerk when shopping around, and maybe even understand his/her answer.

Tech Glossary

Does talking to the clerks at your local gadget store leave you feeling lost? Do they seem to go on and on using terms and acronyms that mean nothing to you? You need a Tech Glossary, and I'm here to help. This will probably be an ongoing segment of this blog, so I'm going to focus each post on one specific area.

Today's post is all about Connections. Let's face it, it's a wireless world out there now, and while there are countless gadgets out there that will work without wires, they don't go about it the same way. Lets try and clear up some of the confusion around just how that's done.

WiFi- No, that's not pronounced "Wiffy", both syllables rhyme with "Eye" and it's a common method of networking computers. You'll see this sold in varieties of B, G, N, and probably some other letters further down the alphabet in the future. Basically, what you need to know is this: the later the letter appears in the alphabet, the faster it runs, and the farther it reaches. WiFi G will cover most homes with a reasonable speed for most people, and N will cover an area twice as wide, and run even faster. To use this type of connection, you'll need two things; a wireless router, and a wireless card. Many new devices have a wireless card built it, but not all, so if you find yourself unsure, see if you can find a manual for it. Wireless routers are the brains behind a WiFi network, they allow WiFi devices in the area to communicate with each other, and if the router has been set up correctly, it will allow those devices to access the internet as well.

Bluetooth- This is not a cause to see the dentist, but yet another way of connecting devices without wires. A phone that is equipped with Bluetooth will typically allow you to use a hands-free Bluetooth headset with it, or a Bluetooth equipped vehicle, but depending on the manufacturer, can connect it to other devices as well for various other tasks. If you've got a mess of wires around your desktop computer at home, a Bluetooth mouse may be a good option for you.

Cat5/Cat5e/Cat6/Ethernet Cable- This is basically just a network cable that looks like a thick phone cord. This will physically connect devices to each other, and is the standard for local area(small) networks. If you've got a broadband("high speed") connection at home, you've got at least one of these set up. These are inexpensive, and common. Just make sure you plug them into the right spot, marked with three small boxes and an upside-down "T" connecting them, and not into a phone outlet.

MiMo- You'll probably see this term listed on a number of WiFi devices, and it stands for Multiple Input, Multiple Output. An analogy of how this works is this: If I have two truckloads of stuff to deliver to Nashville and I want it there quick, I'll send two trucks. MiMo works like that, rather than treating each device as only one, it creates a second connection to the same device to double up the speed at which they can share information. There probably aren't too many people out there that can really use this feature, and chances are, if you're reading this blog with any regularity, you aren't one of them.

That's all for now, check in again for further additions to the Tech Glossary.