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Glossary:
B-frame - Byte
Glossary of CD and DVD related
technical terms and abbreviations in alphabetical order. |
B-Frame: Bidirectionally predictive-coded frame is a frame (in
an MPEG sequence) that is coded using motion compensated prediction from
past and/or future reference frames.
Bass Management: A method used for surround sound systems for
directing the lowest frequencies from, say, a 5-channel surround system
to a single subwoofer. This allows relatively small satellite speakers
to be used for the 5 channels plus a subwoofer, while maintaining high
quality and a full frequency range, which is particularly important for
DVD-Audio.
BBFC: British Board of Film Classification, the UK authority
designated by the Home Secretary with responsibility for classifying
videos (now both VHS and DVD-Video) under the 1984 Video Recordings Act.
BCA: Burst Cutting Area, an annular area within the DVD disc
hub where a bar code can be written for additional information such as
serial numbers.
Bit: A binary digit with values 0 or 1 used in binary
computers (ie all computers in use)
Bitmap: Representation of characters or graphics by individual
pixels arranged in row (horizontal) and column (vertical) order.
Bit Rate: The rate at which the compressed bitstream is
delivered from the storage medium to the input of a decoder.
BLER: Block Error Rate, a QA measurement for CDs, which,
according to the Red Book, must be not more than 220 block errors per
second.
Block: An 8-row by 8-column matrix of pixels, or 64 DCT
coefficients used in JPEG & MPEG compression.
Block: Unit of data on a CD containing 2352 bytes of audio or
computer data with third layer error correction and comprising 98
frames. On a CD-ROM a block is referred to as a sector.
 Blu-ray: A new optical
disc format developed by nine of the original DVD Consortium (Hitachi,
LG Electronics, MEI, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Thomson
Multimedia). The new format retains DVD's physical dimensions but
achieves a capacity of up to 27GB per side/layer by employing a 405 nm
blue-violet laser.
Blue Book: Specification from Philips & Sony that defines
the Enhanced Music CD (CD Extra) for audio and data.
Bonding: The process of joining two substrates to make a DVD
disc. The bonding process can be hot melt (for DVD-5 and DVD-10) or UV
bonding (for DVD-9 where the bonding layer needs to be optically
transparent). UV bonding is the more normal technology used for
all DVD discs.
BSA: The Business Software Alliance, the voice of the world's
leading software developers before governments and with consumers in the
international marketplace.
BVA: British Video Association, which represents the UK video
industry and also takes an active interest in the DVD-Video market.
Byte: 8 Bits, normally used to represent a text character or
an image pixel. Early microprocessors processed only a byte of data at a
time. Current microprocessors (used in personal computers and game
consoles) process 64 bits (8 bytes) or more at a time.
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