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Video Display/Calibration Glossary
This will be a glossary of terms used for video displays and calibration. This will be a work in progress as I cannot remember everything so I'll be adding to it with time.
1080i - 1080 lines of vertical resolution scanned interlaced. Odd lines of resolution would be displayed in one pass and the even lines in the next pass.
1080p - 1080 lines of vertical resolution scanned progressively. All lines of resolution are displayed sequentially, from top to bottom, on every pass.
3:2 pulldown - term used in television/filmaking production to describe transferring film to video - 24fps (frames per second) to 30fps.
720p - 720 lines of vertical resolution scanned progressively. All lines of resolution are displayed sequentially, from top to bottom, on every pass.
Ambient light - light that is present in a room that is not from your display.
ANSI Lumens - is the measurement of lumens according to the American National Standards Institute. This is a more accurate way to measure a projector's light output as opposed to just Lumens.
Aspect Ratio - this is the ratio of the width to height of the video content or your display.
Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) - the group that sets standards for terrestrial transmissions with regards to digital television.
Bezel - this is the surrounding edge material (frame) on your display.
Bit Rate - number of bits per second transferred by the digital signal. The higher the bit rate, the better the quality.
Black Level - the displays ability to produce black.
Brightness - the luminance emitted from your display. the setting on displays is used to adjust the darkness of blacks.
Burn-in - damage caused to displays from an image being displayed too long. Was common among plasma technology and is also being seen with OLED technology as well.
Calibration - fine tuning your display to set standards to achieve image fidelity.
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) - discontinued display technology utilizing vacuum tube technology.
CFL - Cold Cathode Flourescent Light - this is the back lighting of early LCD displays and is being replaced by LED.
Chroma or Chrominance - video signals carry luminance and chroma values. Chroma represents the color of the signal.
Chroma Subsampling - rather than trying to explain it myself, here's an excellent YouTube video that does so nicely.
Chromaticity - a specification of the quality of color regardless of it's luminance. The parameters used to define the color are hue and saturation.
Color Temperature - a displays color temperature setting determines the accuracy to which the display will render grayscale. Set the wrong color temp and everything can push red. And on the flip side, everything can push blue. CIE (International Commission on Illumination) has determined that the proper color temp for displays is D6500 (D65) which measures roughly 6500K (Kelvins is how color temperature is measured).
Color Uniformity - the ability for a screen to reproduce accurately what is being displayed. As displays age, sometimes a section of the screen will display a blue, red or whatever color push. This would be a color uniformity issue.
Color Volume - this is the latest way to measure displays to see how they perform compared to one another. It's basically a 3D display of the color reproduction capabilities of a display at all luminance levels.
Color Wheel - a color wheel is something that is used with DLP technology. The color wheel is placed between the light source and the DLP chip and is used to produce the colors on the screen. Older wheels contained only the 3 primary colors (Red, Green and Blue). Some newer wheels also contain the secondary colors as well (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow).
Component Video - older video signal that was split into 3 parts - luminance and two color. There are 3 cables utilized in component - red, green and blue. The green cable represented the luminance portion of the signal.
Composite Video - single signal using a single cable - yellow RCA cable.
Contrast - setting on the display used to adjust the luminance of whites.
Contrast Ratio - the ratio between the whitest white and the blackest black.
Deinterlacing - the process in which an interlaced signal is converted to a progressive signal.
Delta Error (dE) - the difference between a measured color and what the color should be. A dE of 3 or less is commonly accepted as not being able to be discerned by the human eye.
Digital Light Processing (DLP) - a display device utilizing micro-electro-mechanical technology along with a DMD. Single Chip/Three Chip - Single chip DLPs are common front projection systems in home theaters that use a color wheel to display the colors on the screen. Three chip systems are higher end home theater units along with units commonly found in your local theaters. They use a prism to separate the light into the 3 primary colors and then each color is then sent to it's own DMD before being recombined at the lens.
Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) - a semiconductor consisting of micromirrors. Each micromirror represents a pixel on the display.
Digital Video Recorder (DVR) - a device used to record digital video.
Digital Video Interface (DVI) - an older display interface that was capable of 3.96Gbs transfer rate.
D-ILA (Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier) - JVC's implementation of LCD technology for projectors.
Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) - satellite television broadcasts.
EOTF (Electro-Optical Transfer Function) - to put it simply, this is the way that displays take digital code and turn it into visible light.
Foot Lambert (fL) - a measure of the light output from a video display device. A foot lambert is equal to the light output of one candle.
Frame Rate - the frequency at which frames are displayed. Faster frame rates generally result in fast action scenes seeming smoother.b
Front Projection - a display device that projects an image onto a screen from a distance. Probably the most popular display in most home theaters.
Gamut - represents the complete range of colors.
Grayscale - the measurement of black to white in intensity. A grayscale ramp is a good way to tell if there is a color issue on your display.
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) - protection scheme for digital signals.
High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) - the interface for transmitting uncompressed video and uncompressed or compressed audio.
High Definition Television (HDTV) - a display capable of displaying 720p. 1080i, 1080p or any combination of these resolutions.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) - see here.
Interlaced Scan - resolution where odd numbered lines are scanned on the first pass and then even lines on the next pass.
IRE - stands for Institute of Radio Engineers! A unit used to measure video signals.
ISF - the Imaging Science Foundation.
Judder - this is the result of transferring film content (24 frames per second) to broadcast video (29.97fps).
Keystoning - image distortion occurring in front projection systems. The top or bottom of the image is narrower than the opposite side. It is a result of the projector not being set up properly with relation to the screen.
Letterbox - widescreen format video shown on a narrower display. There are black bars on the top and bottom when viewing this content.
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) - a flat panel display technology using liquid crystals that pass light from an independent source.
Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) - used in front projection. Similar to LCD but a CMOS chip controls each pixel on the LCoS panel.
Light Emitting Diode (LED) - a flat panel technology that uses LED as backlighting instead of cold cathode fluorescent.
Luminance - the brightness of a display. Measured in nits or cd/m2
Metamerism - when two different colors appear to match under certain conditions.
Motion Blur - LCD issue which is a result of the response and refresh rate of a display not being able to keep up with the speed of an image on the display. Results in trails showing up on the video.
MPEG Video Compression - there are currently 3 versions of MPEG compression used in video today - MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-1 is the lowest quality with MPEG-4 being used in Blu-ray technology.
National Television System Committee (NTSC) - the system used for analog television broadcasts until the advent of digital television.
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) - OLED is a LED in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response to an electric current. This is currently the high end of video displays on the market right now.
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) - Europe, Africa and Australia's broadcasting standard.
Pan & Scan - a method of conversion for widescreen material on a 4:3 screen without the black bars on the top and bottom.
Pixel - the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on a screen.
Plasma Display Panel (PDP) - discontinued display technology in which an electrical charge ionized gas inside a cell causing phosphors on the display to emit light.
Progressive Scan - this method displays the image on a line by line basis from top to bottom.
Refresh Rate - this is the number of times the screen is redrawn per second and is measured in hertz.
Resolution - the number of pixels on a display screen. 1080p sets are 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high for a total of 2,073,600 pixels. UHD or 4K displays are 3840 pixels wide by 2160 pixels high for a total of 8,294,400 pixels.
Response Time - The amount of time that it takes for an active pixel to go from black to white to black. It's measure in milliseconds (ms). This was not a characteristic of old plasma display technology.
RGB - Red, Green and Blue - can refer to either the RGB color space or to type of video transmission format using three cables.
RS232 - an older way of connecting calibration equipment to displays - serial port.
S-Video - an older video connection method utilizing a 4 pin DIN connector.
Scaler - this is a device used to change the resolution of a signal to a different resolution.
Screen - this is the device used to display a projected image. It could be a commercial screen, a wall, a bed sheet, etc.
Screen Gain - this is a term used to quantify how a screen reacts with the apparent brightness of a projected image. For instance, some projectors will have a measured fL of 14 at the screen and yet the measured reflection is 21. In this instance the screen's gain would be 1.5.
Set Top Box (STB) - a set top box used to receive and decode digital television signals.
Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) - Sony's proprietary version of LCoS.
THX - a set of patents related to audio/acoustic/film technologies developed by George Lucas' Lucasfilms and spun off on it's own in 2002. There are THX certifications for home theater audio and video components.
Throw Distance - the distance from the projector lens to the projection screen.
Transcoder - digital to digital conversion of one video format to another.
Upconvert - scaling of a video to a higher resolution ie. 480i to 1080i. The signal will never be 1080i but it will generally be better than 480i.
Wide Color Gamut (WCG) - a larger color gamut than what was the standard in the past. Developed by Adobe Systems. This term is used to describe the gamut employed by current UHD/HDR displays.
YCbCr - technical term for digital video. Y represents the luminance and Cb/Cr represent the color portion of the signal.
YPbPr - technical term for component video. It is the analog counterpart of YCbCr digital component video. YPbPr uses three cables, whereas YCbCr uses only one.
This will be a glossary of terms used for video displays and calibration. This will be a work in progress as I cannot remember everything so I'll be adding to it with time.
1080i - 1080 lines of vertical resolution scanned interlaced. Odd lines of resolution would be displayed in one pass and the even lines in the next pass.
1080p - 1080 lines of vertical resolution scanned progressively. All lines of resolution are displayed sequentially, from top to bottom, on every pass.
3:2 pulldown - term used in television/filmaking production to describe transferring film to video - 24fps (frames per second) to 30fps.
720p - 720 lines of vertical resolution scanned progressively. All lines of resolution are displayed sequentially, from top to bottom, on every pass.
Ambient light - light that is present in a room that is not from your display.
ANSI Lumens - is the measurement of lumens according to the American National Standards Institute. This is a more accurate way to measure a projector's light output as opposed to just Lumens.
Aspect Ratio - this is the ratio of the width to height of the video content or your display.
Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) - the group that sets standards for terrestrial transmissions with regards to digital television.
Bezel - this is the surrounding edge material (frame) on your display.
Bit Rate - number of bits per second transferred by the digital signal. The higher the bit rate, the better the quality.
Black Level - the displays ability to produce black.
Brightness - the luminance emitted from your display. the setting on displays is used to adjust the darkness of blacks.
Burn-in - damage caused to displays from an image being displayed too long. Was common among plasma technology and is also being seen with OLED technology as well.
Calibration - fine tuning your display to set standards to achieve image fidelity.
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) - discontinued display technology utilizing vacuum tube technology.
CFL - Cold Cathode Flourescent Light - this is the back lighting of early LCD displays and is being replaced by LED.
Chroma or Chrominance - video signals carry luminance and chroma values. Chroma represents the color of the signal.
Chroma Subsampling - rather than trying to explain it myself, here's an excellent YouTube video that does so nicely.
Chromaticity - a specification of the quality of color regardless of it's luminance. The parameters used to define the color are hue and saturation.
Color Temperature - a displays color temperature setting determines the accuracy to which the display will render grayscale. Set the wrong color temp and everything can push red. And on the flip side, everything can push blue. CIE (International Commission on Illumination) has determined that the proper color temp for displays is D6500 (D65) which measures roughly 6500K (Kelvins is how color temperature is measured).
Color Uniformity - the ability for a screen to reproduce accurately what is being displayed. As displays age, sometimes a section of the screen will display a blue, red or whatever color push. This would be a color uniformity issue.
Color Volume - this is the latest way to measure displays to see how they perform compared to one another. It's basically a 3D display of the color reproduction capabilities of a display at all luminance levels.
Color Wheel - a color wheel is something that is used with DLP technology. The color wheel is placed between the light source and the DLP chip and is used to produce the colors on the screen. Older wheels contained only the 3 primary colors (Red, Green and Blue). Some newer wheels also contain the secondary colors as well (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow).
Component Video - older video signal that was split into 3 parts - luminance and two color. There are 3 cables utilized in component - red, green and blue. The green cable represented the luminance portion of the signal.
Composite Video - single signal using a single cable - yellow RCA cable.
Contrast - setting on the display used to adjust the luminance of whites.
Contrast Ratio - the ratio between the whitest white and the blackest black.
Deinterlacing - the process in which an interlaced signal is converted to a progressive signal.
Delta Error (dE) - the difference between a measured color and what the color should be. A dE of 3 or less is commonly accepted as not being able to be discerned by the human eye.
Digital Light Processing (DLP) - a display device utilizing micro-electro-mechanical technology along with a DMD. Single Chip/Three Chip - Single chip DLPs are common front projection systems in home theaters that use a color wheel to display the colors on the screen. Three chip systems are higher end home theater units along with units commonly found in your local theaters. They use a prism to separate the light into the 3 primary colors and then each color is then sent to it's own DMD before being recombined at the lens.
Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) - a semiconductor consisting of micromirrors. Each micromirror represents a pixel on the display.
Digital Video Recorder (DVR) - a device used to record digital video.
Digital Video Interface (DVI) - an older display interface that was capable of 3.96Gbs transfer rate.
D-ILA (Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier) - JVC's implementation of LCD technology for projectors.
Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) - satellite television broadcasts.
EOTF (Electro-Optical Transfer Function) - to put it simply, this is the way that displays take digital code and turn it into visible light.
Foot Lambert (fL) - a measure of the light output from a video display device. A foot lambert is equal to the light output of one candle.
Frame Rate - the frequency at which frames are displayed. Faster frame rates generally result in fast action scenes seeming smoother.b
Front Projection - a display device that projects an image onto a screen from a distance. Probably the most popular display in most home theaters.
Gamut - represents the complete range of colors.
Grayscale - the measurement of black to white in intensity. A grayscale ramp is a good way to tell if there is a color issue on your display.
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) - protection scheme for digital signals.
High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) - the interface for transmitting uncompressed video and uncompressed or compressed audio.
High Definition Television (HDTV) - a display capable of displaying 720p. 1080i, 1080p or any combination of these resolutions.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) - see here.
Interlaced Scan - resolution where odd numbered lines are scanned on the first pass and then even lines on the next pass.
IRE - stands for Institute of Radio Engineers! A unit used to measure video signals.
ISF - the Imaging Science Foundation.
Judder - this is the result of transferring film content (24 frames per second) to broadcast video (29.97fps).
Keystoning - image distortion occurring in front projection systems. The top or bottom of the image is narrower than the opposite side. It is a result of the projector not being set up properly with relation to the screen.
Letterbox - widescreen format video shown on a narrower display. There are black bars on the top and bottom when viewing this content.
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) - a flat panel display technology using liquid crystals that pass light from an independent source.
Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) - used in front projection. Similar to LCD but a CMOS chip controls each pixel on the LCoS panel.
Light Emitting Diode (LED) - a flat panel technology that uses LED as backlighting instead of cold cathode fluorescent.
Luminance - the brightness of a display. Measured in nits or cd/m2
Metamerism - when two different colors appear to match under certain conditions.
Motion Blur - LCD issue which is a result of the response and refresh rate of a display not being able to keep up with the speed of an image on the display. Results in trails showing up on the video.
MPEG Video Compression - there are currently 3 versions of MPEG compression used in video today - MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-1 is the lowest quality with MPEG-4 being used in Blu-ray technology.
National Television System Committee (NTSC) - the system used for analog television broadcasts until the advent of digital television.
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) - OLED is a LED in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light in response to an electric current. This is currently the high end of video displays on the market right now.
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) - Europe, Africa and Australia's broadcasting standard.
Pan & Scan - a method of conversion for widescreen material on a 4:3 screen without the black bars on the top and bottom.
Pixel - the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on a screen.
Plasma Display Panel (PDP) - discontinued display technology in which an electrical charge ionized gas inside a cell causing phosphors on the display to emit light.
Progressive Scan - this method displays the image on a line by line basis from top to bottom.
Refresh Rate - this is the number of times the screen is redrawn per second and is measured in hertz.
Resolution - the number of pixels on a display screen. 1080p sets are 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high for a total of 2,073,600 pixels. UHD or 4K displays are 3840 pixels wide by 2160 pixels high for a total of 8,294,400 pixels.
Response Time - The amount of time that it takes for an active pixel to go from black to white to black. It's measure in milliseconds (ms). This was not a characteristic of old plasma display technology.
RGB - Red, Green and Blue - can refer to either the RGB color space or to type of video transmission format using three cables.
RS232 - an older way of connecting calibration equipment to displays - serial port.
S-Video - an older video connection method utilizing a 4 pin DIN connector.
Scaler - this is a device used to change the resolution of a signal to a different resolution.
Screen - this is the device used to display a projected image. It could be a commercial screen, a wall, a bed sheet, etc.
Screen Gain - this is a term used to quantify how a screen reacts with the apparent brightness of a projected image. For instance, some projectors will have a measured fL of 14 at the screen and yet the measured reflection is 21. In this instance the screen's gain would be 1.5.
Set Top Box (STB) - a set top box used to receive and decode digital television signals.
Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) - Sony's proprietary version of LCoS.
THX - a set of patents related to audio/acoustic/film technologies developed by George Lucas' Lucasfilms and spun off on it's own in 2002. There are THX certifications for home theater audio and video components.
Throw Distance - the distance from the projector lens to the projection screen.
Transcoder - digital to digital conversion of one video format to another.
Upconvert - scaling of a video to a higher resolution ie. 480i to 1080i. The signal will never be 1080i but it will generally be better than 480i.
Wide Color Gamut (WCG) - a larger color gamut than what was the standard in the past. Developed by Adobe Systems. This term is used to describe the gamut employed by current UHD/HDR displays.
YCbCr - technical term for digital video. Y represents the luminance and Cb/Cr represent the color portion of the signal.
YPbPr - technical term for component video. It is the analog counterpart of YCbCr digital component video. YPbPr uses three cables, whereas YCbCr uses only one.
