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Glossary of CD and DVD Terms
AC-3 Dolby® digital surround sound for DVD-Video
capable of playing 5.1 discrete channels of audio for
the ultimate in surround sound (example, front set of
left & right speakers, center channel, rear set of left &
right surround sp subwoofer). Playing back
AC-3 encoded audio requires a Dolby® AC-3 compat-
ible receiver & the appropriate speakers to be connect-
ed to the DVD-Video player or DVD-ROM drive.
DVD-Video players & DVD-ROM drives can also
play the audio as regular stereo for non AC-3 systems
A-Time An abbreviated form of Absolute Time. In
CD-DA, the time elapsed since the beginning of the
disc. Can be used in determining the start and stop
times of sound segments for programming an applica-
tion on a Mixed Mode disc, measuring from the very
beginning of the data area (including the computer
data in Track 1).
Absolute Time In Pre-Groove (ATIP) Absolute time
on the disc from the very first addressable block in the
PCA (Power Calibration Area) on a CD-R or CD-RW
disc Access To find a piece of information on a memo-
ry medium.
Access Time The time it takes to retrieve a piece of in-
formation. With disks or discs, maximum access time
is measured as the time it takes to move from one end
of the disc to the other, find a piece of information, and
transfer that information to RAM.
Archive A term referring to the long term storage data.
Normally, archiving involves removing a file from on-
line storage because it doesn’t need to occupy valuable
hard drive space, yet it is too valuable to be deleted or
will be used again later. Long-life optical media such
as CD-R, CD-RW, MO, or DVD+RW are highly desir-
able for archiving.
Glossary
