YCrCb - Almost identical to YPrPb. If you connect a YCrCb unit to a YPrPb unit you might have to adjust the color slightly. YCrCb is an older standard uncommon for consumer connections.

DLP - (digital light processor). A technology for video projection, also call DMD (Digital Micro-mirror Device). It is a large chip with about a million tiny mirrors on its surface. The chip can tilt each mirror to vary the amount of light reflected off of it.

DTS - Digital Theatre Sound System. A Dolby proprietary discrete 5.1 channel surround system similar to, but not the same as Dolby Digital AC-3, the DTV standard. DTS is used in cinema presentations and in DVD's.

Interoperability - This refers to the ability of a system or a product to work with other systems or products without special effort on the part of the customer. For example, interoperability would be required for a digital television set to be plugged into a VCR that is plugged into cable with all the components working together.

Bandwidth - The range of frequencies used to transmit the television signal, including picture and sound. Analog television signals have been allocated at 6 Megahertz for each over-the-air channel. Digital channels are allocated the same 6 Megahertz by Industry Canada. However, by the use of digital compression, a combination of up to 5 SDTV programs and/or one HDTV program can be carried in this 6 MHz digital channel.

Must-carry - This refers to the legal obligation of cable companies to carry analog or digital signals of over-the-air local broadcasters.

Compression - A method of reducing the number of bits required to store or transmit programs by the removal of redundant and/or non-critical information in the digital picture and sound. The DTV broadcasting standard for Canada, uses the MPEG-2 video and the AC-3 audio compression coding. Compression allows the delivery of more programs in a single channel.

Video-on-Demand (VOD) - A programming library service offering the individual viewer the choice of the available content on demand. When the program is requested and confirmed (by telephone or Internet) it is then delivered to the viewer over an available channel in encrypted form. VOD services are generally arranged on a "Pay per View" basis, analogous to the cinema.

4 - 3 - Aspect ratio of traditional NTSC TV screens, with 4 unit width by 3 unit height.

DLP - (digital light processor). A technology for video projection, also call DMD (Digital Micro-mirror Device). It is a large chip with about a million tiny mirrors on its surface. The chip can tilt each mirror to vary the amount of light reflected off of it.

DTCP - (Digital Transmission Content Protection) - This is an encryption standard for IEEE 1394 that prevents the copying of first-run movies and pay-per-view events. DTCP is also called 5C Copy protection (in reference to the `five companies' that license it).

Decoder - See "codec." A device or program that translates encoded data into its original format (i.e., it decodes the data.)

Multi-path interference - Some neighborhoods are plagued with this problem: - The signal finds more than one path to the antenna. Multi-path results from reflections off of buildings and diffraction around the sides of hills. For NTSC sets this will result in ghosts: multiple images shifted laterally. For DTVs the result can be an unusable signal, even though it may be strong. The solutions are moving the antenna or selecting a very directional antenna. Newer generations of DTV receivers are better able to cope with multi-path.

SECAM - (Sequential Color And Memory standard) - This alternative to NTSC has 625 lines interlaced, 50 fields per second. It is used in the former USSR, France, and parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Symbol rate - The symbol rate for ATSC is 10.76 million symbols/sec. 8VSB has 3 bits/symbol. After the error correction bits are removed the net - transfer rate is 19.28 million bits/sec.

VGA - a 5-wire standard interface, originally for computer monitors, now common for HDTV monitors. Usually the 5 wires are in one cable. The connector can be either a 15-pin connector or five BNC connectors. The signals are usually red, green, blue, horizontal sync, and vertical sync. But Y, Pr, and Pb can replace the colors.

Virtual channel number - This is the channel the consumer thinks he is watching. The actual (physical) channel is selected by a hidden mechanism.