
Glossary of DVD-Related Terms
CD-R & CD-RW
Recordable Optical Disc formats that can be used as VCD, MP3 or JPG discs with your DVD Player.
Optical Digital Audio Connector
A digital audio connection used to connect a DVD player to a receiver or pre-amplifier. Transfers a “RAW” (encoded)
digital audio signal, minimizes signal degradation.
Component Video
Offers the best interface between a video signal source and a TV. Uses three RCA-type jacks to separate the
component signals making up a video signal. A component video signal is comprised of the luminance (Y) signal
and separate chrominance (PR and PB) signals.
Composite Video
The most common connection between a DVD Player and a video display, Composite Video uses a single RCA
cable.
Dolby Digital 5.1
A digital surround sound system, capable of transferring up to 5 sound channels plus a sub-bass woofer, developed
by Dolby Labs. Supported on most DVD discs.
Dual-Layer DVD
A DVD disc that has two layers on each side. A single-sided, dual-layered DVD can hold almost four hours of video
and audio, and is also known as a DVD-9.
DVD
Digital Video Disc. DVDs come in different formats, such as single-sided or double-sided. Each side can have a
single layer or two layers of data.
DVD-5
A DVD that is single-sided, single-layer, holding up to 4.7 GBytes of data.
DVD-9
A DVD that is single-sided, dual-layer, holding up to 8.5 GBytes of data.
DVD-10
A DVD that is double-sided and single-layered, which holds up to 9.4 GBytes of data. This disc must be manually
flipped to use both sides.
Home Theater
A system designed to re-create the movie theater experience in the home. A typical home theater system will have a
DVD Player, TV, Receiver and Speaker System with 4 speakers and a subwoofer for surround sound.
Interlaced Scanning
Most Televisions use Interlaced scanning, drawing only odd or even lines with each pass.
46