Cable Headend:
The point where cable TV systems receive programming for distribution across their network.

Camcorder>Camcorder:
Combination of camera and video tape recorder in one device. Camcorders permit easy and rapid photography and recording simultaneously. Camcorders are available in most home video formats: 8mm, Hi-8, VHS, VHS-C, S-VHS, etc.

Camera Supply:
Most video cameras use an external DC voltage supply which is derived either from a battery belt worn by the camera operator, from a battery within the video recorder itself, or from the mains power supply (after voltage conversion).

Candlepower:
The unit measure of incident light.

CATV>CATV:
Acronym for cable TV, derived from the older term, community antenna television. A system employing a single large antenna have very good performance to supply a community or building with high-quality reception via cable.

CAV:
Component Analog Video, a signal in which an analog voltage or current, rather than a set of numbers, represents the value of a pixel. Same as Analog Component.

CCD>CCD:
Charge Coupled Device. A semiconductor device (IC) that converts optical images to electronic signals. CCDs are the most commonly found type of image sensor in consumer camcorders and video cameras.

CCIR:
Comite Consulatif International Des Radiocommunications. A European committee situated in Paris responsible for creating and approving professional standards related to audio and video.

CCIR601>CCIR 601:
An international standard for component digital television that defines the sampling systems, matrix values and filter characteristics for both Y, Cr, Cb and RGB component digital television. It establishes a 4: 2: 2 sampling scheme at 13.5MHz for the luminance channel and 6.75MHz for the chrominance channels with 8-bit digitizing for each channel. The D1 digital videotape format conforms to CCIR 601.

CCITT>CCITT:
Consultative Committee for International Telephone has been renamed to ITU.

CCTV:
Closed Circuit TV. A video system used in many commercial installations for specific purposes such as security, medical and educational.

CD:
Compact Disc. A standard medium for storing digital data in machine readable form, accessible with a laser-based reader. Readers are typically referred to as CD-ROM drives.

CD-I:
Compact Disc-Interactive. A compact disc format (developed by NV Philips and Sony Corporation) which provides audio, digital data, still graphics and limited motion video.

CD-ROM>CD-ROM:
Compact Disc-Read Only Memory. A 4.75 inch laser-encoded optical memory storage medium. Uses CLV format and can hold about 550 megabytes of data. The desire to deliver video on the CD-ROM was the chief inspiration for the MPEG-1 standard.

CD-ROM XA:
Compact Disc-Read Only Memory eXtended Architecture. An extension of the CD-ROM standard, billed as a hybrid of CD-ROM and CD-I and promoted by Sony and Microsoft. The extension adds ADPCM audio to permit the interleaving of sound and video data to animation and with sound synchronization. It is an essential component of Microsoft's plan for multimedia computers.

CDTV:
Commodore Dynamic Total Vision. Consumer multimedia system from Commodore that includes CD-ROM/CD audio player, Motorola 68000 processor, 1MB RAM, and 10-key infrared remote control.

Cel Animation Production Artwork:
Any cel, drawing or painting used in any part of the making of a film. (Note: Production does NOT mean "under the camera". Many types of art created for the production of the film were not photographed, but instead acted as a guide for artists to follow. Some of the different types of production artwork are:

• Concept Art Inspirational sketches or paintings used to establish the situations, color choices or mood of a particular sequence. These were rendered in a wide range of media, from pastels and graphite, to watercolor and cut paper.
• Character Models Standardized renderings of characters, expressions, props and costumes. Character Designs would be created by concept artists or lead animators, and once they were approved, photograhic stats, called Model Sheets would be produced and distributed to the various departments to insure absolute consistency between the sketches of all of the artists working on a project. Hundreds of photostats would be produced from a single paste-up, consisting of various drawings trimmed and applied to a board. Sometimes animators would create their own model sheets, traced from their own or other artist's drawings.
• Storyboards A series of sketches, similar to a comic strip, which outlines the action and dialogue in a scene. These drawings would be pinned up on a bulletin board and arranged, re-arranged and replaced as the story took shape. Early rough storyboard sketches are referred to as Thumbnails, while more detailed drawings would be called Finished or Final Storyboard Panels.
• Layout Drawings A detailed pencil drawing that either indicates the fielding, the character's action, or the design of the background which acts as the scenery behind the character. There are two types of layouts: Character Layouts, which outline the character's path of movement, expressions and action within the scene; and the Background Layout, which generally consists of a line drawing of the environment in which the character exists. These layouts are used as reference by the animator, and the background painter, respectively.
• Rough Animation Drawings The original, first generation sketch by the animators in creating the movement in a scene. Roughs can be divided into three basic types: Key Drawings, which were drawn by the principle animators themselves, Break-Downs, which were drawn by both animator and his assistant, and Inbetweens which were the work of the assistant animators alone. Generally, the animator would sketch out a key drawing for every five or six frames and leave the drawings between his keys for the assistants to fill in. Once the rough animation was approved, the drawings would be delivered to the assisting department for Clean Up. Many collectors prefer roughs to clean ups, because they are often more spontaneous and full of life, and they are more likely to be the work of a lead animator.
• Clean-Ups Tracings of the original animation roughs which are often more detailed and refined than the drawings which preceded them. Created by the assisting department, these sketched represent the final stage of animation before the image was transferred to the cel via hand inking or xerography. These sketches oftren include colored lines to indicated different ink colors, color mark-ups to tell the painters which areas to paint which colors, and notes to the ink & paint department about parts of the character that needed to be registered to other characters or background elements.
• Color Model Cels A cel created by the Ink & Paint Department to act as an example for inkers and painters to follow. Color models may be exact duplicates of the cels appearing in the film, or may be test models, exploring various inking techniques or color palettes. Although many collectors assume that color models are less valuable than cels used under the camera, this is not always the case. Since color model cels acted as an example for the inkers and painters to follow, great care was taken to make them absolutely flawless. Cels under the camera often had flaws due to repairs or corrections quickly done in the heat of production.
• Animation Cels The individual painting on celluloid which is photographed along with other cels and a background in a setup, creating the complete image for a single frame of film. Every cel is different, but this doesn't mean that every cel is unique. Often multiple copies of a cel were created as color models, gifts or as Inker's Tests, which were created by the inkers in their free time to refine their technique and practice their skills.
• Background Paintings A painting or other artwork depicting the environment in wich the character operates. First, the Background Sylist made small color sketches called Key Backgrounds, which were created to establish the color scheme and mood. These keys acted as a model for the other background artists to follow. Key backgrounds were also referred to as Preliminary Backgrounds. Backgrounds which were rejected or cut from the film were called N.G. Backgrounds. Although hundreds of animation drawings and cels would be required for a scene, typically there was only one background. A setup featuring a cel and background from the same scene is often incorrectly referred to as a Key Background Setup, but a more accurate description would be a Matching Background Setup. A cel and background from the same film, but not the same scene is often referred to simply as a Background Setup.

Cel Levels:
The individual cels that go together to make up a cel setup. Due to technical considerations, it was very rare for two or more separate characters to be included on a single cel level. Usually, each element was on its own cel, with up to a maximum of five levels to a scene. Because of the added density of the multiple cel levels, the paint colors were corrected for the discoloration caused by the plastic, making the colors on a bottom level cel much brighter than those on a top level cel.

Cel Setups:
A combination of two or more cels, with or without a background, which work together to form a complete image. These can be either Matching (the way the image appeared in the finished film) or Non-Matching (combinations of elements which are pleasing together, but do not appear together in the film).

Cels:
Sheets of clear plastic, containing the images of the characters, which are placed over a background, and then photographed in succession to give the illusion of movement in the completed film. The outline of the image, whether hand-inked or xerographed, is applied to the front of the cel. The colors are painted by hand onto the back of the cel to eliminate brushstrokes. Large areas of black paint were sometimes applied to the front of the cel to reduce glare.

Cels, Acetate:
Animation cels made from cellulose acetate, a much more stable material which remains the industry standard to this day.

Cels, Nitrate:
Animation cels made from cellulose nitrate, a flammable, unstable material prone to wrinkling, yellowing and shrinkage over long periods of time. Decomposing nitrate emits fumes and resins which can accelerate the rate of decomposition of any cel in close proximity. Nitrate cel stock was used throughout the 1920's, '30s and the early 40's at the Disney Studios, and well into the 1950's at other studios.

CGA:
Color Graphics Adapter. A low-resolution video display standard, invented for the first IBM PC. CGA pixel resolution is 320x200.

CGM:
Computer Graphics Metafile. A standard format that allows for the interchanging of graphics images.

Charactergenerator>Character Generator:
Device that electronically generates text which can be superimposed over a video signal. Text is usually entered via a keyboard, allowing selection of various fonts, sizes, colors, styles and background colors, then stored as multiple pages for retrieval.

Checkerboard Assembly:
In video editing, a nonsequential method of auto assembly. The computerized editing system records and edits from the videotape playback reels currently in use, leaving gaps that will be filled later by subsequent reels. Also called B-mode assembly. (See Auto Assembly.)

Chroma>Chroma, Chrominance:
The color portion of the video signal that includes hue (phase angle) and saturation (amplitude) information. Requires luminance, or light intensity, to make it visible.

Chromacorrector>Chroma Corrector:
A device used to correct problems related to the chroma of the video signal, as well as color balance and color noise.

Chroma Noise:
Noise which manifests itself in a video picture as colored snow.

Chromakey>Chroma Key:
The process of overlaying one video signal over another by replacing a range of colors with the second signal. Typically, the first (foreground) picture is photographed with a person or object against a special, single-color background (the key-color). The second picture is inserted in place of the key-color. The most common example is in broadcast weather segments where pictures of weather maps are inserted "behind" the talent.

Chrominance>Chrominance & Chrominance Level:
The color portion of a video signal separate from the luminance (or brightness) component, representing the saturation and hue (tint) at a particular point of the image. Black, gray and white have no chrominance, but any colored signal has both chrominance and luminance. The higher the chrominance level, the stronger the color (e.g., a strong signal produces red, and a weak signal, pink).

CIE:
Commission International de l'Eclairage. The international commission on illumination. Developer of color matching systems.

Cinepak:
A software file-compression scheme for video that's well suited to low-power CPUs. Established by SuperMac (now Radius Technologies), it is common on Windows and the Mac OS. Cinepak video is typically 320-by-240 pixels at 15fps.

Clip:
A continuous set of frames from a source tape or reel. Also called a scene or "take."

Clipping:
The electronic process of shearing off the peaks of either the white or black excursions of a video signal for limiting purposes. Sometimes, clipping is performed prior to modulation, and sometimes to limit the signal, so it will not exceed a predetermined level.

CLV:
Constant Linear Velocity. Spiral format of audio compact disks and some video laser disks.

CMYK:
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and black. The four process colors that are used in four-color printed reproduction.

Coaxial Cable:
The standard cable consisting of a central inner conductor and a cylindrical outer conductor. Used for many video connections, especially by CATV companies.

CODEC:
Code/Decode. An encoder plus a decoder is an electric device that compresses and decompresses digital signals. CODECs usually perform A-to-D and D-to-A conversion.

Color Balance:
The process of matching the amplitudes of red, green and blue signals so the resulting mixture makes an accurate white color.

Color Bars:
An electronically generated video pattern consisting of eight equal width colors, used to establish a proper color reference before recording and playback and for adjustment purposes.

Colorburst>Color Burst:
The portion of a color video signal which contains a short sample of the color subcarrier used to add color to a signal. It is used as a color synchronization signal to establish a reference for the color information following it and is used by a color monitor to decode the color portion of a video signal. The color burst acts as both amplitude and phase reference for color hue and intensity. The color oscillator of a color television receiver is phase locked to the color burst.

Color Correction:
A process in which the coloring in a television image is altered or corrected by electronic means. (See Chroma Corrector)

Color Cycling:
A means of simulating motion in a video by changing colors.

Color Decoder:
A device which divides a video signal into its basic color components. In TV and video, color decoding is used to derive signals required by a video monitor from the composite or Y/C signals.

Color Keying:
To superimpose one image over another for special effects.

Color Phase:
The phase of the chroma signal as compared to the color burst, is one of the factors that determines a video signal's color balance.

Color Processing:
A way to alter a video signal to affect the colors. The Video Equalizer is suited to this task. (See Chroma Corrector)

Colorsubcarrier>Color Subcarrier:
The 3.58 MHz/NTSC (4.43 MHz/PAL) signal added to a black and white television signal to add color information. The subcarrier frequency is too high to be detected by black and white televisions ensuring compatibility. Color sets employ special circuitry which detects and decodes the color component for display.

Color Temperature:
A method for specifying the overall color (hue) of a light source, measured in degrees Kelvin (deg.K). Higher numbers indicate hotter (blue) light, lower numbers indicate a cooler (red) light.

• Daylight = 5000-5500 deg.K
• Fluorescent = approx. 4100 deg.K
• Indoor incandescent = 2800 deg.K

Colorization:
Special effect (also called paint) which colors a monochrome or color image with artificial colors.

Communication Protocol:
A specific software based protocol or language for linking several devices together. Communication protocols are used between computers and VCRs or edit controllers to allow bi-directional "conversation" between the units. (See RS-232/RS-422)

Componentvideo>Component Video:
Most home video signals consist of combined (composite) video signals, composed of luminance (brightness) information, chrominance (color) information and sync information. To get maximum video quality, professional equipment (Betacam and MII) and some consumer equipment (S-VHS and Hi-8) keep the video components separate. Component video comes in several varieties: RGB (red, green, blue), YUV (luminance, sync, and red/blue) and Y/C (luminance and chrominance), used by S-Video (S-VHS and Hi-8) systems.

Composite Sync:
A signal consisting of horizontal sync pulses, vertical sync pulses and equalizing pulses only.

ComposVideo>Composite Video:
A video signal in which the luminance (brightness), chrominance (color), blanking pulses, sync pulses and color burst information have been combined using one of the coding standards. (NTSC, PAL, SECAM)

Compound Document:
A file that has more than one element (text, graphics, voice, video) mixed together.

Compressed Video:
A digital video image or segment that has been processed using a variety of computer compression algorithms and other techniques to reduce the amount of data required to accurately represent the video content.

Compression:
1) The process of electronically processing a video picture to make it use less storage or to allow more video to be sent down a transmission channel. 2) The process of removing picture data to decrease the size of a video image.

Continuous Tone:
An image that has all the values (0 to 100%) of gray (black and white) or color in it. A photograph is a continuous tone image.

Contrast>Contrast:
The degree to which the various luminance values in a picture are mapped to very dark and very light values. A high-contrast picture is dominated by black and white and few values between. A low contrast picture has a lot of middle tones without many very dark or very light areas.

Control-L>Control-L:
Sony's wired edit control protocol, also called LANC (Local Application Control), which allows two-way communication between a camcorder or VCR and an edit controller. Control-L allows the controller to control the deck (fast forward, play, etc.) and also allows the controller to read the tape position (tape counter) information from the deck.

Control-M:
Panasonic's wired edit control protocol. Similar to Control-L in function but not compatible. Also called Panasonic 5-pin edit control. (See Control-L)

Control-S:
Sony wired transport control protocol which duplicates a VCR's infra-red remote transport control (play, stop, pause, fast forward and rewind). Unlike Control-L, Control-S does not allow the controller to read tape counter information.

Control-T:
Similar to Control-L but allows multiple units to be controlled. Not used in current equipment.

Control Track:
The magnetized portion along the length of a videotape on which sync control information is placed. The control track contains a pulse for each video field and is used to synchronize the tape and the video signal.

Convergence:
In an RGB monitor, where red, green, and blue signals all "converge" in one pixel. At full brightness, the RGB pixel in convergence would be white.

Crossfade:
The audio equivalent of the video dissolve where one sound track is gradually faded out while a second sound track simultaneously replaces the original one.

Crosstalk:
The interference between two audio or two video signals caused by unwanted stray signals. In video, crosstalk between input channels can be classified into two basic categories: luminance/sync crosstalk; and color (chroma) crosstalk. When video crosstalk is too high, ghost images from one source appear over the other. In audio, signal leakage, typically between left and right channels or between different inputs, can be caused by poor grounding connections or improperly shielded cables.

CSC:
Computer Support Collaboration. Describes computers that enhance productivity for people working in groups. Application examples include video conferencing, video mail, and shared workspaces.

Cut:
A clean, abrupt change from one scene to another.

Cuts-Only:
Traditional low-cost editing system which uses one source machine and one record machine only. Dissolves and wipes can not be performed.

Cyclorama (cyc):
The seamless cove used in Chroma key or Matte applications to give a flat even surface for even keying. (See Key.)