Pioneer DVD-V5000 Owner's Manual - Page 76

11 Additional information Glossary Analog audio An electrical signal that directly represents sound. Compare this to digital audio which can be an electrical signal, but is an indirect representation of sound. See also Digital audio. Aspect ratio The width of a TV screen relative to its height. Conventional TVs are 4:3 (in other words, the screen is almost square); widescreen models are 16:9 (the screen is almost twice as wide as it is high). Digital audio An indirect representation of sound by numbers. During recording, the sound is measured at discrete intervals (44,100 times a second for CD audio) by an analog-to-digital converter, generating a stream of numbers. On playback, a digitalto-analog converter generates an analog signal based on these numbers. See also Sampling frequency and Analog audio. Dolby Digital 1 Using a maximum of 5.1 channels of audio, this high quality surround system is used in many of the finer movie theaters around the world. The on-screen display shows which channels are active, for example showing 3/2.1. The 3 being the two front channels and the center channel; the 2 being the surround channels, and the .1 being the LFE channel. DTS DTS stands for Digital Theater Systems. DTS is a surround system different from Dolby Digital that has become a popular surround sound format for movies. Dynamic range The difference between the quietest and loudest sounds possible in an audio signal (without distorting or getting lost in noise). Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks are capable of a very wide range, delivering dramatic cinema-like effects. MPEG audio An audio format used on Video CDs and some DVD discs. This unit can convert MPEG audio to PCM format for wider compatibility with digital recorders and AV amplifiers. See also PCM (Pulse Code Modulation). MPEG video The video format used for Video CDs and DVDs. Video CD uses the older MPEG-1 standard, while DVD uses the newer and much better quality MPEG-2 standard. PBC (PlayBack Control) (Video CD only) A system of navigating a Video CD through onscreen menus recorded onto the disc. Especially good for discs that you would normally not watch from beginning to end all at once-karaoke discs, for example. PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) The most common system of encoding digital audio, found on CDs and DAT. Excellent quality, but requires a lot of data compared to formats such as Dolby Digital and MPEG audio. For compatibility with digital audio recorders (CD, MD and DAT) and AV amplifiers with digital inputs, this unit can convert Dolby Digital, DTS and MPEG audio to PCM. See also Digital audio. Regions (DVD-Video only) These associate discs and players with particular areas of the world. This unit will only play discs that have compatible region codes. You can find the region code of your unit by looking on the rear panel. Some discs are compatible with more than one region (or all regions). Sampling frequency The rate at which sound is measured to be turned into digital audio data. The higher the rate, the better the sound quality, but the more digital information is generated. Standard CD audio has a sampling frequency of 44.1kHz, which means 44,100 samples (measurements) per second. See also Digital audio. 76