User guide

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Appendix C, Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme Glossary
mV Abbreviation for millivolt (one-
thousandth of a volt). Unit of measurement
sometimes used to define the amplitude of a
video signal. See also IRE unit.
N
nonlinear editing Random access editing
that generally uses video and audio clips
stored on disks. Nonlinear editing programs
let you rearrange and edit clips without
having to redo the entire production, and
provide instant cueing to any frame in a clip
without waiting for tapes to rewind.
NTSC National Television Systems
Committee. The NTSC RS-170A standard
defines a method of broadcasting a color
signal that can be received by both
monochrome and color TVs. It uses a
composite interlaced display comprised of
525 scan lines per frame, refreshed at a rate of
approximately 30 frames per second.
Broadcast systems in North America and
Japan use the NTSC standard.
O
organic wipe A wipe effect that uses a
grayscale gradient pattern to switch from one
image to another by gradually revealing the
second image according to the pattern.
P
PAL Phase Alternate Line. A video
standard that uses a composite interlaced
display comprised of 625 scan lines per
frame, refreshed at a rate of 25 frames per
second. This is the broadcast video standard
for most of Europe.
particle effect A Matrox effect in which a
clip breaks apart or explodes in a number of
patterns.
PCI slot Connection slot to a type of
expansion bus found in most current
computers. It is smaller in size than older ISA
slots and provides connections to the high-
speed PCI host bus.
P-frame (Predicted frame) A frame
created during the MPEG or MPEG-2 IBP
compression process. A P-frame is created by
using motion vectors to predict the
differences between it and the closest
previous I-frame or P-frame. This forward
prediction allows for higher compression than
with I-frames, but not as high as with B-
frames. P-frames, like B-frames, contain only
predictive data and therefore cannot be edited
independently.
pixel Picture element. The smallest portion
of an image that can be written to a display.
Each pixel in an image represents a single dot
on the computer screen. A picture’s resolution
depends on the number of pixels on the
screen.
Plug and Play A hardware standard for
auto-configuration. It refers to the ability of
computer hardware to detect and configure
expansion devices such as your Matrox
RT.X100 Xtreme card. Windows XP and
Windows 2000 support Plug and Play.
plug-in Software that adds functionality
and/or features to an application. For
example, the Matrox realtime plug-in for
Adobe Premiere adds realtime Matrox effects
and transitions to Adobe Premiere. Plug-ins
can be installed from a CD or downloaded
from a web site.
proc amp An electronic device that adjusts
the different aspects of a video signal, such as
its hue, saturation, and contrast.
progressive scanning A method of
creating a video image by drawing all the
lines of a screen sequentially so that the
complete image is displayed in one pass.
VGA displays and some HDTV formats use
progressive scanning.