Encoding

In the computer industry, programmers and users see and work with higher level languages, but the processors deal with machine languages and binary code. To use optical technology, it was necessary to develop an encoding scheme that would produce an effective optical code of pits and lands (pits are the data and the lands are the gaps between each pit)--one that can be decoded easily to produce the 8-bit code used by the PC. The resulting optical encoding scheme, uses a 14-bit byte (see Byte)--in which the 1s represent the transitions between lands and pits, and the 0s represent the run-lengths. In addition, there are various other sets of system and error detection and correction bits that are encoded so that the technology works as designed--but the user does not deal with these. The mastering machines do the encoding, and, when reading the disc, the controller card of the drive does all the decoding. For video compression, as in MPEG encoding or decoding, these terms refer to the creation of codes (frequency coefficients) that are used to represent the 'compressed' video stream, and to the decompression or 'decoding' that is performed to produce the video frame on the user's screen.

Aspect Ratio
AVI
Bandwidth
Beta SP
Blu-Ray
Byte
Capacity of CD-ROM
Capacity of DVD
CD
CD Business Card
CD Duplication
CD-R Duplication
CD-Recordable
CD Replication
CD-R Replication
CD-ROM
Compression

CSS
DAT
DLT and SDLT
Digital Asset Management
Digital Bin
Digitization
DVCAM
DVD
DVD Authoring
DVD Duplication
DVD Replication
DVD-R
DVD-Audio
Encoding
Frame Rate
Full-motion Video

HD DVD
High Definition DVD
Injection Molding
Jewel Case
JPEG
Macrovision
Mini CD
Mini DVD
MPEG
Multimedia
NTSC
PAL
Replication
ROM
SECAM
Variable Bit Rate