Acronyms & Definitions
4K
resolution
8VSB – Is an 8-level Vestigial Sideband Modulation, off air digital
modulation used in the US and other North American countries for Broadcast TV.
ADSL – Asymmetric Digital
Subscriber Line is a type of digital subscriber line technology, a data
communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper
telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ADSL differs
from the less common symmetric digital subscriber line.
AAC – Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an
audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the
successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than
MP3 encoders at the same bit rate. AAC is used in H.264 encoders
API – An Application
Programming Interface is a connection between computers or between computer
programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other
pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build or use
such a connection or interface is called an API specification.
ASCII – abbreviated from
American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding
standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers,
telecommunications equipment, and other devices.
ASI – Asynchronous Serial Interface
is a method of carrying an MPEG Transport Stream (MPEG-TS)
over 75-ohm copper coaxial cable or optical fiber, it is popular in the
television industry as a means of transporting compressed broadcast programs
from the studio or in the headend to the final transmission equipment before it
reaches viewers sitting at home.
ATM – Asynchronous Transfer Mode
is a telecommunications standard defined by ANSI and ITU-T for digital
transmission of multiple types of traffic, including telephony, data, and video
signals in one network without the use of separate overlay networks.
ATSC – The Advanced
Television Systems Committee is an international, nonprofit organization
developing technical standard for digital terrestrial television and data
broadcasting.
ATSC-3.0 is the latest standard
from the Advanced Television Systems Committee and it specifies the new
Broadcast standard for terrestrial broadcasters. ATSC 3.0 uses a
physical layer that is based on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
(OFDM) modulation and the bit rate can vary from 1 Mbit/s to 57 Mbit/s, it
supports MPEG2, 4 as well as HEVC with resolutions up to 4K
AVC – Advanced Video Coding, also
referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, Advanced Video Coding, is a video
compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding.
BER – Bit Error Rate in digital
transmission, the number of bit errors is the number of received bits of a data
stream over a communication channel that have been altered due to noise,
interference, distortion or bit synchronization errors. The bit error rate is
the number of bit errors per unit time.
BW -, BandWidth is the maximum
rate of data transfer across a given path. Bandwidth may be characterized as
network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth.
CAS – Conditional Access System
is the protection of content by requiring certain criteria to be met before
granting access to the content. The term is commonly used in relation to
digital television systems and to software.
CAT5 – Category 5 cable (Cat
5) is a twisted pair cable for computer networks. Since 2001, the variant commonly
in use is the Category 5e specification.
CLI – Cumulative Leakage
Index means the permitted index or range of radiation leakage computed in
accordance with the rules of FCC and applicable to CATV systems.
CMTS – A Cable Modem
Termination System is a piece of equipment, typically located in a cable
company’s headend or hubsite, which is used to provide high speed data
services, such as cable Internet or Voice over Internet Protocol, to cable
subscribers.
CNR – In telecommunications, the
Carrier-to-Noise Ratio, often written CNR or C/N, is the
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a modulated signal.
CPD –
Common Path Distortion is a return path
impairment that can have a severe effect on return path signal quality.
Although it can take on many forms and degrees of severity, it has a very
distinctive signature.
CWDM – Course Wave Division
Multiplexing a variant of wavelength division
multiplexing (WDM), is an optical
transmission technique used for shorter distances as compared to dense WDM
(DWDM). CWDM transmits few channels and makes use of wider spacing in
between the channels for distances of up to 60 km.
DFB – A Distributed-FeedBack
laser (DFB laser) is a type of laser diode, quantum cascade laser or optical fiber
laser where the active region of the device contains a
periodically structured element or diffraction grating.
DRM – Digital Rights Management
is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or
technological protection measures such as access control technologies can
restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works.
DSL – Digital Subscriber Line is
a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone
lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to
mean asymmetric digital subscriber line, the most commonly installed DSL
technology, for Internet access.
DTH – The direct To Home
technology enables a broadcasting company to directly beam the signal to your
TV set through a receiver that is installed in the house.
DVI – Digital Visual
Interface is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working
Group. The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video
display controller, to a display device, such as a computer monitor.
DWDM – In fiber-optic
communications, Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing is a technology which
multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by
using different wavelengths of laser light.
EAS – The Emergency Alert System
is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized
officials to coordinate and disseminate emergency alerts and warning messages
to the public via terrestrial and satellite radio and television, including
broadcast and multichannel television.
EDFA – Erbium
Doped Fiber Amplifier is an optical amplifier used in the C-band and L-band,
where loss of telecom optical fibers become lowest in the entire optical
telecommunication wavelength bands.
EIRP –
Effective Isotropic Radiated Power is a calculation used to estimate the
radiated output power of satellite at a particular location on earth
EPON –
Ethernet Passive Optical Networks are an emerging access network technology
that provides a low-cost method of deploying optical access lines between a
carrier’s central office and a customer site. EPON’s build on the international
telecommunications union standard G.
EQAM – Edge
QAM device is a dense, scalable solution that is vital to supporting additional
advanced and next generation services over HFC hybrid fiber coaxial networks.
It enables cable operators and MSOs to integrate new service offerings
seamlessly to support their business initiatives.
ETTH – Ethernet
To The Home is a high-speed technology that realizes high data rates over
broadband cable networks.
EX-MOD –
External Modulation rather than direct modulation of the diode is an often-used
technique for maintaining the linewidth of the seed source, which can broaden
in pulsed diodes.
FEC – Forward Error Correction (FEC) is a method of
obtaining error control in data transmission in which the source (transmitter)
sends redundant data and the destination (receiver) recognizes only the portion
of the data that contains no apparent errors.
FP – In gravitational wave
detection, Fabry–Pérot cavity is used to store photons for almost a millisecond
while they bounce up and down between mirrors. This increases the time a
gravitational wave can interact with the light, which results in a better
sensitivity at low frequencies. An Inexpensive Laser.
GaAs – Gallium Arsenide is a
type III/V semiconductor with high electron mobility and a high saturated
electron velocity compared to silicon, enabling transistors made of gallium
arsenide to function at frequencies over 250 GHz. Gallium arsenide devices are
not sensitive to heat because of their wide-bandgap.
G-PON – Gigabit Passive
Optical Network is a fiber-optic telecommunications technology for delivering
broadband network access to end-customer.
HEVC – High Efficiency
Video Coding also known as H.265,
is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a
successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding H.264, or MPEG-4. In
comparison to AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the
same level of video
HDCP – .High-Bandwidth Content
Protection is a form of digital copy
protection developed by Intel Corporation to
prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across
connections.
HDMI – High-Definition
Multimedia Interface is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting
uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from
an HDMI-compliant source.
IF – In communications and
electronic engineering, an Intermediate Frequency is a frequency to which a
carrier wave is shifted as an intermediate step in transmission or reception.
IP – The Internet Protocol is
the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for
relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables
internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.
IPTV – Internet Protocol Television
is the delivery of television content over Internet
Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through
traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television
formats.
ISDN – Integrated Services
Digital Network is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital
transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the
digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network.
LAN – A local Area Network is
a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a
residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By
contrast, a wide area network not only covers a larger geographic distance, but
also generally involves leased telecommunication circuits.
LNB – Low-Noise Block
downconverter is the receiving device mounted on satellite
dishes used for satellite TV reception,
which collects the radio waves from the dish and converts them to a signal
which is sent through a cable to
the receiver inside the building.
LO – Local Origination means
programming produced by the Grantee, the Commission, or the City staff
regarding issues and events affecting the Member Municipalities.
MER – The Modulation Error Ratio
or MER is a measure used to quantify the performance of a digital radio
transmitter or receiver in a communications system using digital modulation.
MOCA – The Multimedia over
Coax Alliance is an international standards consortium that publishes
specifications for networking over coaxial cable.
MP3 – MPEG-2 Layer 3 Part 3 of
the MPEG-2 standard (formally known as ISO/IEC 13818-3, also known as MPEG-2
Audio or MPEG-2 BC) defines audio coding: MPEG Multichannel – It enhances
MPEG-1’s audio by allowing the coding of audio programs with more than two
channels, up to 5.1 multichannel.
MPEG – The Moving Picture Experts Group is an
alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets
standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video,
graphics and genomic data, and transmission and file formats for various
applications. The standards are often named after the acronym such as MPEG-2
MPEG-2 – Is the 2nd
standard defined by MPEG for video compression and is widely used as the format of digital television signals
that are broadcast by terrestrial (over-the-air), cable, and direct broadcast
satellite TV systems. It also specifies the format of movies and other programs
that are distributed on DVD and similar discs.
MPEG 4 Is the 4th standard
defined by MPEG for video compression and
is
widely used as the format of digital television signals that are broadcast by Cable
and Satellite due to the lower bitrate of the compression. MPEG-4 is also
called H.264
MPEG-TS – MPEG transport stream
or simply transport stream is a standard digital container format for
transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information
Protocol data. It is used in broadcast systems such as DVB, ATSC and IPTV.
MPTS- Multiple Program
Transport Stream a MPEG Transport Stream with more than one program
MUX – In electronics, a
multiplexer, also known as a data selector, is a device that selects between
several analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input to a
single output line. The selection is directed by a separate set of digital inputs
known as select lines.
NF – Noise Figure and noise
factor are measures of degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio, caused by
components in a signal chain. It is a number by which the performance of an
amplifier or a radio receiver can be specified, with lower values indicating
better performance.
OFDM – Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing is a type of digital transmission and a method of
encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies.
OLT – An optical Line Termination,
also called an optical line terminal, is a device which serves as the service
provider endpoint of a passive optical network.
ONT– Optical Network Termination,
also called ONU (Optical Network Unit), refer to the consumer end equipment in
an optical fiber to home (FTTH) link.
OTDR – An Optical Time-Domain
Reflectometer is an optoelectronic instrument used to characterize an optical
fiber. An OTDR is the optical equivalent of an electronic time domain
reflectometer.
PCMCIA – Personal Computer
Memory Card International Association was a group of computer hardware
manufacturers, operating under that name from 1989 to 2009/2010, starting with
the eponymous PCMCIA card in 1990, it created various standards for peripheral
interfaces designed for laptop computers.
PEG – Public Educational
Government channels are across channels available for use by the general
public. Administered either by the cable operator or by a third party.
Educational channels are used by the educational institutions for educational
programming. Time on these channels is typically allocated among local school,
colleges and universities by either the franchising authority or the cable
operator. Governmental channels are used for programming by local governments.
In most jurisdictions, local governments directly controls these channels.
PON – Passive Optical Network is
a fiber-optic telecommunications technology for delivering broadband network
access to end-customers.
POP3 – In computing, the Post
Office Protocol is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by
e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 is the
version in common use.
PSIP – Program and System
Information Protocol is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately
defined program-specific information originally
defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and
later extended for the ATSC digital
television system for carrying metadata about
each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a television station and for publishing
information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch
by title and description.
QAM – Quadrature Amplitude Modulation is
the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related
family of analog modulation methods widely used in
modern telecommunications to transmit information,
Cable Modulation.
QPSK – Quadrature Phase Shift
Keying is a form of Phase Shift Keying in which two bits are modulated at once,
selecting one of four possible carrier phase shifts (0, 90, 180, or 270
degrees). QPSK allows the signal to carry twice as much information as ordinary
PSK using the same bandwidth, Satellite Modulation Format.
RJ – A Registered Jack is a
standardized telecommunication network interface for connecting voice and data
equipment to a service provided by a local exchange carrier or long distance
carrier.
RJ – 45 A Registered Jack with 8
conductors and 8 contacts typically used in Ethernet systems
RTSP – Real Time Streaming
Protocol is an application-level network protocol designed for multiplexing and
packetizing multimedia transport streams over a suitable transport protocol.
RTSP is used in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming
media servers.
S/N – Signal-to-Noise ratio is a
measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired
signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal
power to the noise power, often expressed in decibels. A ratio higher than 1:1
indicates more signal than noise.
SAP – Second Audio Program (SAP),
also known as secondary audio programming, provides audio tracks in languages
other than the native language that was recorded in a program. This feature is
only available on the TV if you use an antenna or cable without a set-top box.
SAW – Surface Acoustic wave
is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface
of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that
typically decays exponentially with depth into the material, such that they are
confined to a depth of about one wavelength.
SAW Filter – Surface
Acoustic Wave filter are compact, low-cost RF filters that can be
used in a wide range of applications up to 3 GHz. SAW filters operate by
converting electrical energy into acoustic or mechanical energy on a
piezoelectric material
SDI – Secure Digital Interface/
secure digital input output, a type of secure digital card interface. It can be
used as an interface for input or output devices.
SFP – Small form-factor
pluggable is a compact, hot-pluggable network interface module used for both
telecommunication and data communications applications. An SFP interface on
networking hardware is a modular slot for a media-specific transceiver in order
to connect a fiber-optic cable or sometimes a copper cable.
SPTS – Single Program
Transport Stream an SPTS stream carries a signal program. Multicast networks
always use SPTS. VOD (Video on Demand), on the subscriber side, uses SPTS.
Source feeds that deliver content from the VHO to the distribution offices are
typically MPTS streams.
TTL – Time To Live refers to the
amount of time or hops that a packet is set to exist inside a network before
being discarded by a router. The # of devices such as network switches that the
packet will pass through
UPS – Uninterruptible Power Supply
or uninterruptible power source is an electrical apparatus that provides
emergency power to a load when the input power source mains power fails.
USB – Universal Serial Bus is an
industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and
protocols for connection, communication and power supply between computers, peripherals
and other computers.
UTP – Unshielded Twisted Pair is
a ubiquitous type of copper cabling used in telephone wiring and local area
networks. There are many types of UTP cables – identified with the preflix CA,
as in category – each supporting a different amount of bandwidth, CAT-3, CAT-5,
CAT-5e, CAT-6, CAT-6A & CAT-7
VBR – Variable BitRate is a term
used in telecommunications and computing that relates to the bitrate used in
sound or video encoding. As opposed to constant bitrate (CBR),
VBR files vary the amount of output data per time segment.
VOIP – Voice over Internet
Protocol, also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for
the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over internet
Protocol networks, such as the internet.
VPN – A virtual Private Network
extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and
receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices
were directly connected to the private network.
VSAT – Very-Small-Aperture Terminal
is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna that is smaller than
3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates,
in most cases, range from 4 kbit/s up to 16 Mbit/s.
VSB – Vestigial Sideband
Modulation or VSB Modulation is the process where a part of the signal called
as vestige is modulated, along with one sideband. A VSB signal can be plotted
as shown in the following figure. Along with the upper sideband, a part of the
lower sideband is also being transmitted in this technique.
WAN – Wide Area Network is a
telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area
networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits.
Watermark – A digital watermark is a kind of marker
covertly embedded in a noise-tolerant signal such as audio, video or image
data. It is typically used to identify ownership of the copyright of such
signal
WDM – Wavelength-Division Multiplexing
is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a
single optical fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light.
WIFI – Wireless fidelity
allows for the creation of a wireless local area network. Much like other
wireless technologies, wireless fidelity works by sending signals between
devices with the help of certain frequencies of radio signals. Wi-Fi operations
on the bandwidth of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
XFP – 10 Gigabit small
form-factor pluggable is a standard for transceivers for high-speed computer
network and telecommunication links that use optical fiber. It was defined by
an industry group in 2002, along with its interface to other electrical components,
which is called XFI.
XMOD – Cross MODulation an effect in which
amplitude modulation (AM) from a strong undesired signal is transferred to a
weaker desired signal.
