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WYSIWYG What's on the screen is what will appear on the printed page (word processing / DTP) or when published online (website). Authoring Creating an interactive multimedia application. Presentation Slides shown to an audience. Executable file A file in a format that the computer can run directly without the need for any other program. CCD Charged couple device - used by digital cameras to capture light coming in through the lens. Scanner A device with a CCD scan head which passes over a document reflecting light and converting the data to digital format. Memory stick A USB flash drive which can be used to store information and files from a computer. Compression Storing data in a format that requires less space than usual. Reasons to compress bitmap graphics Can be very large files taking up a lot of storage space and take time to transmit across networks. GIF compression Uses lossless compression by using a code to store repeating patterns of bits. JPEG compression Uses lossy compression by merging similar colours which won't can't be detected by the human eye. Resolution The number of pixels in a given area. Can be measures as either dots per inch (dpi), millions of pixels (megapixels), or dimensions (e.g. 800x600). Crop image Cut off the sides of an image. Resize / scale image Adjust the width/height of an image. CRT monitor Cathode-ray tube works by moving an electron beam back and forth across the back of the screen lighting up phosphor dots on a tube. LCD monitor Liquid crystal display used in laptops and thin monitors. TFT monitor Thin film transistor, a type of LCD flat-panel display screen, in which each pixel is controlled by from one to four transistors. Graphics card An expansion board that takes the pressure of the processor by having its own processor and memory used for handling graphics. Smartphone A handheld device that integrates mobile phone capabilities with the more common features of a handheld computer or PDA. Pocket PC A handheld palmtop computer. Digital TV A device which can handle highh definition video and audio, and which the user can interact with. Virtual reality An artificial environment created with computer hardware and software and presented to the user in such a way that it appears and feels like a real environment. VR Input The user wears gloves and a suit in order to send data to the computer. VR sensors These can be magnetic trackers, ultrasoinc tracking systems or optical position sensors. Digitised sound The reproduction and transmission of sound stored in a digital format. Sound card An expansion board that enables a computer to record audio, playback digitised audio, synthesise sounds and work with MIDI. Microphone An analogue audio input device. RAW Uncompressed audio data. WAV The audio component of a RIFF file, developed by Microsoft. MP3 Audio compression technique which removes the redundant and irrelevant parts of a sound signal - the sound the human ear doesn't hear. Lossy compression A data compression technique in which some amount of data is lost. Attempts to eliminate redundant or unnecessary information. Lossless compression A data compression technique in which no data is lost - limited in that it can only realistically reduce the space by a maximum of 50%. Audio bit rate The number of bits of audio data which are transmitted in one second. Audio sample depth The number of bits used to store the information about each audio sample. Audio sample frequency The number of audio samples taken in one second. Sound time The duration of an audio clip (in seconds). Sound editing software Software which provides the users with a series of tools with which to edit audio data (e.g. Effects; volume; crop; change frequency, resolution or depth) Synthesised sound data Artificial sound produced by the computer. MIDI Used by musicians for controlling devices that emit music such as synthesizers and sound cards. Stores pitch, length and volume of a note. MIDI instrument The type of instrument to be played (e.g. Guitar, drum, piano). Bitmap A representation of a graphics image in computer memory. The value of each dot is stored in one or more bits of data. Webcam Low quality video input device. Frame A single image from a movie file - many frames are played together at speed to give the illusion of movement. Frame rate The number of frames which are played per second. The standard rate is 25 fps. Colour depth The number of colours which are stored in an individual pixel. Resolution The number of pixels in a given area. Can be measures as either dots per inch (dpi), millions of pixels (megapixels), or dimensions (e.g. 800x600). Keyframe A video frame which is stored in full, with non-key frames only storing data about any changes since the previous frame. MPEG Compression standard and file format for video. Version 2 is the standard for DVD, the current version (4) can be used for high or low quality video. AVI Microsoft's video standard for Windows - frames of video are interleaved with blocks of sound. Trim / crop video Remove video frames from the final movie. Video timeline An interface which allows the user to lay a video project out in a linear fashion horizontally across a monitor. Video transitions A method of joining of two different video clips together, creating a pleasing video effect. Vector graphic An image built up of objects. Each object is described mathematically and can be manipulated individually. Vector graphic attributes Store details about position, size, fill, rotation etc. SVG Scalable Vector Graphics, a vector graphics file format that enables two-dimensional images to be displayed in XML pages on the Web. VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language - a specification for displaying 3-dimensional objects on the World Wide Web. Resolution independent Describes how an image is rescaled without a loss of quality as it is zoomed in, as is the case with vector graphics.