Digital Video and You Trivia Quiz

Answer: S-VHS

S-VHS is a type of analogue VHS system that encodes higher resolution video onto standard VHS tapes. While it was an improvement over VHS, it certainly cannot compare to more modern digital camcorders. DVCam is the "professional" version of Mini-DV. Although the video information is exactly the same, more tape is used per frame of information to create "frame-redundancy" which can help prevent drop-outs in the video signal later due to damage or deterioration.

In addition, certain features like a type of flash memory on the tape itself can record camera settings and other slate information. Digital-8 was a Sony pre-cursor and competitor to Mini-DV and is usually lower quality than today's Mini-DV cams. Finally, the obscure D-VHS format was originally meant to be a competitor to DVD.

The advantage was the ability to record much like a standard VHS machine, in addition, its much higher data transfer rate than DVD allowed for the possibility of HD signal compatibility out of the box. It never caught on because tape formats don't have much credibility in the consumer mindset, and now DVDs are much lower cost to produce and have the ability to record.

Answer: D-Theatre

D-Theatre is the digital encryption standard designed for D-VHS. CSS is the digital encryption standard designed for DVD. Perhaps you've heard about it being so robust a 17 year old Norweigen computer student cracked it in a few hours. Macrovision is a form of analogue copy protection that creates flashes of light and dark, and messes up colors when a VHS tape or DVD is played to a recording device such as a VCR. Lastly, DVS-MeS is just something I made up.

Answer: 4.7 GB

The DVD-5 holds 4.7 GB of data, although early burnable DVDs created for professional mastering houses to use actually only held 3.95GB of data. That 4.7 GB is the basis of a single layer DVD, and can be combined in multiple layers, and multiple sides to create many different sizes of disc.

Answer: reverse spiral dual layer

Reverse Spiral Dual Layer is a method of organizing the layers so the first layer of the disc starts on the inside and spirals out to the edge of the disc, and the second layer reverses this pattern to work its way from the edge into the center. This is important for long movies that span across the layer break so the player does not have to pause long enough to move the lens / read assembly back to the center of the disc and find the start of the next layer.

Answer: Stephen King's The Stand

The stand was the first commercially produced DVD-18, as it was authored. Although much like its successor, Terminator 2, many copies ended up being distributed on several DVD-9s. Part of this was due to the fact that very few commercial replicators could produce DVD 18 back then, and in order to fill large duplications requests in a timely manner, sometimes the job had to be done by more than one replicator.

Answer: Nuon

Nuon was pretty much DOA by 2003. The idea was to add a universal standard for adding interactivity to media players of all kinds and they started with DVD. Imagine a hardware implementable Java Virtual Machine. Sadly people didn't feel like paying extra cash for a DVD player with enhanced functionality when there was next to no software out there to take advantage of it.

Answer: Divx

Divx, which failed fairly miserably, relied on a Tivo-like connection by modem to their service which would verify how long you had to play the disc. If you wanted to buy it you could call up and purchase an ownership license for the title. But every time you popped in a new disc, the Divx player would have to call home and check what kind of license you had and if you could view the disc at all. The obvious drawback is that you can't lend your buddy discs, or even play them on different players in your house.

Disney tried the same thing recently with $7 discs that deteriorated in a few days after opening due to exposure to the air. As of January, 2004 many stores were pulling them from the shelves due to poor sales.

Answer: i-link

i-link was the name Sony came up with when they first began marketing DV cameras. They touted the capability to transmit audio, video, and machine control functions in both directions all through one cable. While that functionality is fantastic, it is part of the Fire-wire spec., and not specific to Sony's implementation of it, as their campaign might lead you to believe.

The technical name of the Fire-Wire spec., given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is IEEE 1394. USB 2.0 is a newer faster version of the Uiversal Serial Bus, and although capable of handling video now, it is not as widely used for doing so. PCI express is a new PCI standard for computer I/O on motherboards that is also faster than its predecessor. It has not much to do with video.

Answer: interlaced / progressive

NTSC standard video signal, that is the signals used in North America, are by nature interlaced which has one field of odd number lines alternating with one field of even numbered lines in an "interlaced" manner 60 times a second to create a frame. Some cameras can capture the entire frame at once to create 30 discreet frames per second, in a "progressive" scan mode.

This is handy for video presented on a computer or DVD as both are capable of rendering entire frames at once instead of alternating lines. PAL is the standard of video favored in many parts of Western Europe, which is also an interlaced format. Hi-Def is a term denoting resolution and can come in both interlaced and progressive flavors. Analogue and Digital are terms relating to types of signals and information and are mostly irrelevant to this question.

Answer: Mpeg-2

Mpeg-2 is the original compression method designed for broadcast resolution video and used for DVD exclusively. Many digital cable and satellite systems also compress their video streams this way to be decoded by your set-top box. Mpeg-4 is a newer standard that can handle everything from highly compressed web delivery files to ultra-high definition files used to distribute films to theatres with digital projection systems. Windows Media Files are partially based on this standard. DV is the standard for digital video files that is much less compressed. YUV is a form of singal interface that handles color for a broadcast format as opposed to computer format.