TEXT SIZE: LARGER

You are here:

PLEXTALK Asia English main > Technical Terms

google bookmark twitter

Technical Terms

[Audio formats]

<MP3>
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players.
<Ogg Vorbis>
Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for mid to high quality (8kHz-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same competitive class as audio representations such as MPEG-4 (AAC), and similar to, but higher performance than MPEG-1/2 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (TwinVQ), WMA and PAC.
<WAVE>
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or more commonly known as WAV due to its filename extension) is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw and typically uncompressed audio. The usual bitstream encoding is the linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) format.
<AMR-WB+>
AMR-WB is a patented speech coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding. Extended Adaptive Multi-Rate – Wideband (AMR-WB+) is an audio codec that extends AMR-WB. It adds support for stereo signals and higher sampling rates.
<PCM>
Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. A PCM stream is a digital representation of an analog signal, in which the magnitude of the analog signal is sampled regularly at uniform intervals, with each sample being quantized to the nearest value within a range of digital steps.
<Audible Format 4>
When you purchase a book from Audible, depending on the title, you may be able to download it in several different formats. The different formats are designed for different purposes. Format 4 is an MP3 compression of the spoken voice recording.

[Text-based formats]

<html>
HTML are initials that stand for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is the code behind your webpage and is what your browser looks for to display a webpage, the way the webdesigner intended it to look, and is a series of tags <tags> that tells the browser where to display what.
<MS-word doc/MS-word docx>
Microsoft Word is a commercial word processor designed by Microsoft. The default Word document format (.DOC) became a de facto standard of document file formats for Microsoft Office users. DOCX files are created using the Open XML format, which stores documents as a collection of separate files and folders in a compressed zip package. DOCX files are designed to make document contents accessible. For example, document text is saved using plain text files and document images are stored as individual image files within the DOCX file.

[Storage media]

<CD>
The Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage (CD-ROM). CD-ROM discs are identical in appearance to audio CDs, and data are stored and retrieved in a very similar manner (only differing from audio CDs in the standards used to store the data). Unlike a music CD, a CD-ROM cannot rely on error concealment by interpolation, and therefore requires a higher reliability of the retrieved data.
<CD-R>
A CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a variation of the Compact Disc. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session.
<CD-RW>
A CD-RW (Compact Disc-ReWritable) is a rewritable optical disc. CD-RW discs require a more sensitive laser optics than the other CD discs, like a CD-R.
<CCCD>
Copy Control CD is the generic name of a copy prevention system on several digital audio discs. Copy Control discs cannot properly be referred to as CDs because the system introduces incompatible data, making the discs non-compliant with the Red Book standard for audio CDs.
<CF card>
CompactFlash (CF) is a mass storage device format used in portable electronic devices. For storage, CompactFlash typically uses flash memory in a standardized enclosure. CompactFlash became the most successful of the early memory card formats. The memory card formats that came out after the introduction of CompactFlash, such as SD, various Memory Stick formats offered stiff competition. There are two main subdivisions of CF cards, Type I (3.3 mm thick) and the thicker Type II (CF2) cards (5 mm thick). The CF Type II slot is used by Microdrives.
<SD card>
Secure Digital (SD) is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. SD / miniSD / microSD are members of the SD family. From a host device point of view, all cards within the same family appear the same to it. SD adapters allow the physical conversion of smaller SD cards to work in a larger physical slot, and basically are passive devices that connect the pins from the smaller SD card to the pins of the larger SD adapter.
<SDHC card>
SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity, SD 2.0) is an extension of the SD standard which increases card’s storage capacity up to 32 GB. SDHC cards share the same physical and electrical form factor as older (SD 1.x) cards, allowing SDHC-devices to support both newer SDHC cards and older SD-cards.
<FAT16/32>
File Allocation Table (FAT) is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on many portable devices because of their relative simplicity. The FAT 16 file system was introduced with MS-DOS and was in use through the first version of Windows 95. It was originally designed to index files on a floppy drive and also on hard drives up to a capacity of 2.1 Gigabytes. FAT 32 is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system in order to remain compatible with existing programs, networks, and device drivers. The biggest improvement in FAT 32 is its ability to efficiently manage storage space on today’s larger hard drives. It can handle disks larger than 2GB and format them with a single partition thereby allowing you to assign a single drive letter to your drive.

[Peripherals]

<PC card>
In computing, PC Card (originally PCMCIA Card) is the form factor of a peripheral interface designed for laptop computers. The PC Card electrical specification is also used for CompactFlash, so a PC Card CompactFlash adapter need only be a socket adapter.
<USB>
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a specification to establish communication between devices and a host controller (usually a personal computer), which has effectively replaced a variety of earlier interfaces such as serial and parallel ports. USB can connect computer peripherals such as mice, keyboards, digital cameras, printers, personal media players, flash drives, Network Adapters, and external hard drives. For many of those devices, USB has become the standard connection method.
<USB On-The-Go>
USB On-The-Go, often abbreviated USB OTG, is a specification that allows for USB devices which would normally act as slaves, (e. g. PLEXTALK Pocket PTP1) to switch roles and become the host themselves. Standard USB uses a master/slave architecture; a USB ‘host’ acts as the protocol master, and a USB ‘Device’ acts as the slave. Only the Host can schedule the configuration and data transfers over the link. The Devices cannot initiate data transfers, they only respond to requests given by a host. OTG introduces the concept that a ‘Device’ can perform both the master and slave roles, and so subtly changes the terminology
<LAN>
A local area network (LAN) is a group of computers and associated devices that share a common communications line or wireless link. Typically, connected devices share the resources of a single processor or server within a small geographic area (for example, within an office building).
<Wireless LAN>
A wireless local area network (WLAN) links two or more devices using some wireless distribution method and usually providing a connection through an access point to the wider internet.
<IEEE802.11b/g>
802.11 and 802.11x refers to a family of specifications developed by the IEEE for wireless LAN (WLAN) technology. 802.11 specifies an over-the-air interface between a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients. 802.11b an extension to 802.11 that applies to wireless LANs and provides 11 Mbps transmission (with a fallback to 5.5, 2 and 1-Mbps) in the 2.4 GHz band. 802.11b was a 1999 ratification to the original 802.11 standard, allowing wireless functionality comparable to Ethernet. 802.11g applies to wireless LANs and is used for transmission over short distances at up to 54-Mbps in the 2.4 GHz bands.

© 2011 Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd.
PLEXTALK is the registered trademark of Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd.
Other brands and products are trademarks of their respective holder/s.
Specification subject to change without notice.