Technology

Visualizers rely on various pieces of technology to complete their purpose. Below is a list of these technologies with information on what they are and what purpose they serve:

1-CCD and 3-CCD Cameras

CCD chips are made up of sensors that pick up "brightness" not color. 1-CCD cameras produce a color image by sharing the pixels of the CCD with three primary colors; Red, Green and Blue. Green uses 50% of the pixels, 25% for red and 25% for blue. The electronics in the camera produce a color picture by calculating the missing pixels. However, only about half of the resolution of the CCD is visible in the color picture.

How a 1-CCD camera renders an image

A 3-CCD chip works in a slightly different way in that it uses 3 separate CCD for Red, Green and Blue. The camera electronics combine one pixel from each CCD to a color pixel. The result is full color resolution, and the colors are more lifelike and real compared to the 1-CCD.

How a 3-CCD camera renders an image
35mm Slide Film

135 film became popular in the early 1930s for still photography. It overtook the 120 film in popularity by the late 1960s to become the most popular format. The 35mm slide film can still be used on visualizer today however new technology is slowly replacing it.

BNC

The BNC (Bayonet Neill-Concelman) connector is used to terminate coaxial cable. It is an RF connector and is extremely popular in the audio visual industry because of its quality in terminating coaxial cable.

Charge Coupled Device or CCD

A CCD is an electrical device that is used to create images and store information. The CCD sensors receive light from the input and convert it into an electronic signal - an output. The output signal is almost always then used to display an image.

Composite Video

This format of video is largely found for analog displays. The composite video is usually a yellow connector which is then couple by red and white audio. It is usually in standard format such as PAL, NTSC and SEECAM.

Contrast measurement Auto Focus

Measures contrast within a sensor field, through the lens. The intensity difference between adjacent pixels of the sensor naturally increases with correct image focus. The optical system can thereby be adjusted until the maximum contrast is detected. This is a common method in video cameras and consumer-level digital cameras that lack shutters.

CMOS

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) is a class of integrated circuits. This technology is commonly found in chips such as microcontroller's microprocessors, static RAM, and other digital logic circuits. CMOS technology can also be used for analog circuits such as data converters, image sensors, and highly integrated transceivers.

Depth of Field

Depth of Field in terms of visualizers is extremely important, especially when viewing 3D objects. The depth of field is the distance in front of and beyond the subject being viewed. This function allows every detail in the foreground and the background to be in focus.

DLP

Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a technology used in projectors and video projectors. It was originally developed at Texas Instruments, in 1987 by Dr. Larry Hornbeck.

In DLP projectors, the image is created by microscopically small mirrors laid out in a matrix on a semiconductor chip, known as a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD). Each mirror represents one pixel in the projected image. The number of mirrors corresponds to the resolution of the projected image. 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x720, and 1920x1080 (HDTV) matrices are some common DMD sizes. These mirrors can be repositioned rapidly to reflect light either through the lens or on to a heatsink (called a light dump in Barco terminology).

The rapid repositioning of the mirrors (essentially switching between 'on' and 'off') allows the DMD to vary the intensity of the light being reflected out through the lens, creating shades of grey in addition to white (mirror in 'on' position) and black (mirror in 'off' position).

DVI

The Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video interface that is designed to sharpen the visual quality of numerous digital displays like digital projectors and flat panel LCD screens. The technology was developed by the Digital Display Working Group. Its primary purpose to carry uncompressed digital video data to the display device.

HDMI

The High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is an all-digital audio/video interface capable of transmitting uncompressed streams. HDMI is compatible with High-bandwith Digital Content Protection (HDCP) Digital Rights Management technology. HDMI provides an interface between any compatible digital audio/video source, such as a set-top box, a DVD player, a PC, a video game system, or an AV receiver and a compatible digital audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV).

HDTV

High-definition television (HDTV) is a digital television broadcasting system with a significantly higher resolution than traditional formats (NTSC, SECAM, PAL). While some early analog HDTV formats were broadcast in Europe and Japan, HDTV is usually broadcast digitally, because digital television (DTV) broadcasting requires much less bandwith. HDTV technology was first introduced in the US during the 1990s by a group of electronics companies called the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance

Image Sensor

An image sensor is a device that converts a visual image to an electric signal. It is used chiefly in digital cameras and other imaging devices. It is usually an array of charge-coupled devices (CCD) or CMOS sensors such as active pixel sensors.

Infrared Remote Control

The term remote control can be also referred to as "remote" or "controller" when abbreviated. It has been known by many other names as well, such as the "clicker," etc. Commonly, remote controls are used to issue commands from a distance to televisions or other consumer electronics such as stereo systems and DVD players. Remote controls for these devices are usually small wireless handheld objects with an array of buttons for adjusting various settings such as television channel, track number, and volume. In fact, for the majority of modern devices with this kind of control, the remote contains all the function controls while the controlled device itself only has a handful of essential primary controls. Most of these remotes communicate to their respective devices via infrared (IR) signals and a few via radio signals. They are usually powered by small AAA or AA size batteries

LCD

A liquid crystal display (commonly abbreviated LCD) is a thin, flat display device made up of any number of color or monochrome pixels arrayed in front of a light source or reflector. It is prized by engineers because it uses very small amounts of electric power, and is therefore suitable for use in battery-powered electronic devices

LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light when electrically biased in the forward direction of the P-n junction. This effect is a form of electroluminescence. LEDs are small extended sources with extra optics added to the chip, which emit a complex intensity spatial distribution

Lens

A lens is a device that causes light to either converge and concentrate or to diverge. It is usually formed from a piece of shaped glass or plastic.

Lumen

The lumen (symbol: lm) is the SI unit of luminous flux, a measure of the perceived power of light. Luminous flux differs from radiant flux, the measure of the total power of light emitted, in that luminous flux is adjusted to reflect the varying sensitivity of the human eye to different wavelengths of light

Luminance

Luminance is a photometric measure of the density of luminous intensity in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through or is emitted from a particular area, and falls within a given solid angle.

Pixel

A pixel (short for picture element, using the common abbreviation "pix" for "picture") is a single point in a graphic image. Each such information element is not really a dot, nor a square, but an abstract sample. With care, pixels in an image can be reproduced at any size without the appearance of visible dots or squares; but in many contexts, they are reproduced as dots or squares and can be visibly distinct when not fine enough. The intensity of each pixel is variable; in color systems, each pixel has typically three or four dimensions of variability such as red, green and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow and black

Progressive Scan

Progressive or non-interlaced scanning is any method for displaying, storing or transmitting moving images in which the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence. This is in contrast to the interlacing used in traditional television systems

RCA/Phono

An RCA jack, also referred to as a phono connector or CINCH/AV connector, is a type of electrical connector that is commonly used in the audio/video market. The name "RCA" derives from the Radio Corporation of America, which introduced the design by the early 1940s to allow phonograph players to be connected to Amplifiers

For many other applications it began to replace the older jack plugs used in the audio world when component high fidelity started becoming popular in the 1950s

The corresponding plug is called an RCA plug or a phono plug, as opposed to a phone plug which refers to an audio jack plug

RJ-45

Quite simply put the RJ-45 jack is an Ethernet jack for connection to the internet. Many of the new models of visualizers are equipped with this connection to update firmware.

RS-232

In telecommunications, RS-232 is a standard for serial binary data interconnection between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data Circuit-terminating Equipment). It is commonly used in computer serial ports. A similar ITU-T standard is V.24

Scanner

In computing, a scanner is a device that analyzes an image (such as a photograph, printed text, or handwriting) or an object (such as an ornament) and converts it to a digital image. Most scanners today are variations of the desktop (or flatbed) scanner. The flatbed scanner is the most common in offices. Scanners use charge-coupled device (CCD) or Contact Image Sensor (CIS) as the image sensor.

SD Card

Secure Digital (SD) is a flash (non-volatile) memory card format developed by Matsushita, SanDisk and Toshiba for use in portable devices, including digital cameras, handheld computers, PDAs and GPS units.

S-Video

S-Video (Super Video, sometimes referred to as Y/C video, or component video) is a video signal transmission in which the luminance signal and the chrominance signal are transmitted seperately to achieve superior picture clarity. The luminance signal (Y) carries brightness information, which defines the black and white portion, and the chrominance signal (C) carries color information, which defines hue and saturation. Traditional or composite video, the way that video signals have traditionally been transmitted, sends both (along with synchronization data) as one signal.

SVGA

Super Video Graphics Array, almost always abbreviated to Super VGA or just SVGA is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards

Originally, it was an extension to the VGA standard first released by IBM in 1987. Unlike VGA-a purely IBM-defined standard-Super VGA was defined by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), an open consortium set up to promote interoperability and define standards. When used as a resolution specification, in contrast to VGA or XGA for example, the term SVGA normally refers to a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels

SXGA

is an abbreviation for Super Extended Graphics Array referring to a standard monitor resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. This resolution of 1,310,720 pixels is an enhancement of the standard XGA resolution that IBM developed in 1990

Telemedicine

generally refers to the use of communications and information technologies for the delivery of clinical care.

Touch Screens

touch screens, touch panels or touchscreen panels are display overlays which have the ability to display and receive information on the same screen. The effect of such overlays allows a display to be used as an input device, removing the keyboard and/or the mouse as the primary input device for interacting with the display's content. Such displays can be attached to computers or, as terminals, to networks. Touchscreens also have assisted in recent changes in the PDA and Cell-Phone Industries, making these devices more useable.

TWAIN

is a standard for acquiring images from image scanners: an image capture API for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. The word TWAIN is not officially an acronym; however, it is widely known as a backcronym for "Technology (or Toolkit or Thing) Without An (or Any) Intelligent (or Important or Interesting) Name".

USB

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to interface devices. It was originally designed for personal computers, but it has become commonplace on handheld devices such as portable memory devices, video game consoles, PDAs and portable media players

A major component in the legacy-free PC, USB was devised to help retire all serial and parallel ports on personal computers since these were not standardized and required a multitude of device drivers to be developed and maintained

Video Conferencing

(also known as a videoteleconference) is a set of interactive telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously. It has also been called visual collaboration and is a type of groupware. It differs from videophone in that it is designed to serve a conference rather than individuals.

VGA

Video Graphics Array (VGA) is an analog computer display standard first marketed in 1987 by IBM. While it has been obsolete for some time except in the pocket PC market where it is becoming the new standard, it was the last graphical standard that the majority of manufacturers decided to follow, making it the lowest common denominator that all PC graphics hardware supports prior to a device-specific driver being loaded. For example, the Microsoft Windows splash screen appears while the machine is still operating in VGA mode, which is the reason that this screen always appears in reduced resolution and color depth.

The term VGA is often used to refer to a resolution of 640x480, regardless of the hardware that produces the picture. It may also refer to the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector which is still widely used to carry analog video signals of all resolutions.

VGA was officially superseded by IBM's XGA standard, but in reality it was superseded by numerous extensions to VGA made by clone manufacturers that came to be known as "Super VGA".

WSXGA+

WSXGA+ stands for Widescreen Super eXtended Graphics Array and is a computer display standard. The resolution is 1680x1050 pixels. It is the widescreen version of SXGA+, but it is not approved by any organization. WSXGA+ has a 16:10 aspect ratio.

XGA

XGA, the eXtended Graphics Array, is an IBM display standard introduced in 1990. Today, it is the most common appellation of the 1024 x 768 pixels display resolution, but the official definition is broader than that. It was not a new and improved replacement for Super VGA, but rather became one particular subset of the broad range of capabilities covered under the "Super VGA" umbrella