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  • Active-matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD)
    What is an active-matrix liquid crystal display? Also known as TFT Display, or Thin Film Transistor Display. An active matrix liquid crystal display is the display industry’s term for the type of flat panel display that is currently the overwhelming... Read more »
  • Analog Monitor
    What are Analog Monitors used for? An Analog Monitor is a monitor or display that is capable of accepting continuously varying or analog signals from the video source. This allows the monitor to display an infinite range of different colors... Read more »
  • Anti-Glare Screen
    What are anti-glare screens? Anti-Glare Screen refers to a clear panel or filter placed over, or a transparent coating applied to the faceplate of computer monitor to help prevent glare from the sun or other bright light sources from appearing... Read more »
  • ANTIALIASING
    Anti-aliasing in multimedia is any technique used to smooth the jagged edges that are created when diagonal lines are drawn on a digitized image.
  • Aperture Grille
    What is an Aperture Grille? An Aperture Grille refers to a method of CRT construction employing vertical strips of colored phosphor with a thin screan formed of a grid of tiny metal wires. Electron beams emitted from the electron gun... Read more »
  • Brightness
    What is computer screen brightness? Brightness is the setting of the basic light level intensity in a computer monitor. This is commonly set in conjunction with contrast to improve the quality of the viewable image.
  • Candela (cd)
    What is a candela? The candela is the base unit of measurement of luminous intensity. It is defined as the power emitted by a light source in a particular direction per unit solid angle, weighted by the luminous efficiency function... Read more »
  • Candela per Square Meter (cd/m2)
    What is a Candela per square meter (CD/M2)? The Candela per Square Meter (also known as a Nit) is the base unit used to measure the luminance of a display. The luminance of a display indicates how of how bright... Read more »
  • Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)
    What is a cathode-ray tube (CRT)? A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube which is used to create images in the form of light emitted from the fluorescent screen. In its simplest form, it contains a source of electrons... Read more »
  • Contrast
    Contrast is the term used to describe the degree of brightness variation (white through black) in an image.
  • Contrast Ratio
    What does contrast ratio mean? The contrast ratio is a measurement of a display’s contrast capability, and is defined as the ratio of the luminance of the brightest color (white) to that of the darkest color (black) that the system... Read more »
  • Dead Pixel
    What is a Dead Pixel? A ‘Dead Pixel’ is the term used to describe a pixel that no longer illuminates. The term is more common on LCD and Plasma display technology, whereas a similar defect on a CRT monitor is... Read more »
  • Degauss
    What does degaussing mean? Degaussing is the method of erasing magnetic charge from a magnetized material. Occasionally, the shadow mask of a color CRT will pick up a magnetic charge, and deform, causing ‘purity’ or discolorations in the video image.... Read more »
  • Digital Monitor
    What is a digital monitor? A Digital Monitor uses a digital video signal rather than an analog video signal to create an image. Unlike an analog monitor, a digital monitor cannot display an infinite range of colors.
  • Display (Monitor)
    What is a display (monitor)? Display is the term used to describe the electronic device used to present images and/or text.
  • Dot Pitch
    What is a dot pitch? Dot Pitch is the distance between pixels on a computer display screen. It is generally measured in millimeters.
  • Dots Per Inch – DPI
    What is Dots Per Inch? DPI (Dots Per Inch) is a measurement of display device’s resolution capability, and indicates how many pixels, or dots, the display device can place in one square inch. The higher the DPI, the sharper the... Read more »
  • DVI-D
    What is DVI-D? DVI-D stands for “DVI-Digital” and supports digital transfers only.
  • DVI-I
    DVI-I stands for “DVI-Integrated” and supports both digital and analog transfers, so it works with both digital and analog Visual Display Units.
  • EGA – Enhanced Graphics Adapter
    What is an EGA (enhanced graphics adapter)? Manufactured by IBM in 1984, the Enhanced Graphics Adaptor (EGA) is a digital video standard that falls between CGA and VGA in terms of color and space resolution. Operating with RGB digital TTL... Read more »
  • Fixed-frequency monitor
    What is a fixed-frequency monitor? Common in older display monitor systems, fixed-frequency monitors are designed to only run at a specific signal from within a limited frequency range.
  • Flat screen Monitor
    What is a flat screen monitor? A flat screen monitor generally refers to a CRT monitor whose faceplate is flat, not curved.
  • Flat-Panel display (monitor)
    What is a flat panel display monitor? Flatpanel displays (flatpanel monitors) is the term generally used to describe a display device that is not based upon the cathode-ray tube technology. They usually use Liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology, although Plasma and... Read more »
  • Flicker (not to be confused with Yahoo’s Flickr)
    Flicker describes a flashing, or rapid blinking in an image on a display screen. Flicker generally occurs when the video refresh rate of the display system is too low, but it can also be caused by other video-related problems and... Read more »
  • Foot candle
    What is a foot candle? A foot candle is the measurement of amount of light reflected by a surface one foot from a lighted candle. The term is becoming obsolete, and is replaced by SI units of cd/m2 or nits’.
  • Frame
    In the display business, a frame is a single image displayed by the monitor.
  • Frame rate
    What does frame rate mean? The Frame rate, usually measured in Frames Per Second (fps), is frequency at which individual image frames are displayed or projected. Full speed video images generally require a frame rate of 24, 25 and 30... Read more »
  • FSTN (Film SuperTwist Nematic)
    What is FSTN (Film Supertwist Nematic)? FSTN is a type of LCD display.
  • Full-motion video (FMV)
    What is Full Motion Video? Abbreviated as FMV, Full-Motion Video is the term used to describe video display systems that are capable of displaying full speed video images and sound on a monitor. Depending upon the video format being used,... Read more »
  • Hercules
    Hercules refers to a monochrome graphics standard introduced in the early 1980s and developed by Hercules Computer Technology for IBM compatible computers. The standard defined a resolution of 720 Pixels by 348 pixels on a monochrome monitor.
  • HGA
    Short for Hercules Graphic adapter.
  • Horizontal scan rate
    What is horizontal scan rate? Horizontal scan rate refers to the speed that each line is drawn horizontally on a display monitor. This is commonly expressed in Kilohertz [KHz].
  • Image Burn
    When a CRT computer monitor is left for long periods of time with a constant image, the image can seep into screen phosphor, leaving a permanent image. Image Burn occurs more often with older monitors, but it can still occur... Read more »
  • Intensity bit
    The intensity bit is a fourth bit of information added to the Red, Green, and Blue bits on early digital CGA monitor that is used to display different intensities of color. For example, the RGBI monitor is capable of displaying... Read more »
  • Interlacing
    What is interlaced video? Interlacing refers to one of the two methods commonly used to generate a video image on an electronic display screen (the other being progressive scan). The interlace technique was devised for displaying high-quality full-motion-video images on... Read more »
  • IRGB (or RGBI)
    What is red green blue intensity? Red Green Blue Intensity (RGBI) is the technology used to generate a 16-color image on early digital-input computer monitors. 16-colors are created by the addition of an intensity bit to the digital signals controlling... Read more »
  • Nit
    A Nit is another term for one candela per square meter (cd/m2), which is the SI (International System of Units) base unit for measuring luminance. In the display monitor industry, it is used to measure the brightness of the surface... Read more »
  • NTSC
    What is NTSC? Short for National Television System Committee, NTSC is the American committee responsible for creating technological television and video standards, including refresh rate and color capabilities. NTSC Composite Video is the standard for analog color televisions.
  • PAL
    What is PAL? Short for Phase Alternating Line, PAL is the dominant television standard used across Europe. Pal delivers 625 lines of resolution, interlaced at 50 half-frames per second (25 Frames per second).
  • Persistence
    What is display persistence? Display persistence is amount of time it takes for the phosphor in a CRT display to lose all of its charge. The longer the persistence, the less flicker there is. However, long-persistence phosphors exhibit ‘ghosting’ with... Read more »
  • PGA
    What is PGA? Short for Professional Graphics Adapter. PGA was an early video standard developed by IBM that supports up to 640×400 resolution.
  • PPI – Pixels Per Inch (See Dots-per-Inch)
    What is PPI? Short for Pixels Per Inch, PPI is the numbers of pixels per inch that comprises a pixel image. Also called ‘dots per inch’, PPI is a measurement of display device’s resolution capability. The more pixels per inch... Read more »
  • Resolution
    What is resolution? The term commonly used to describe the image quality of a printer or monitor. In monitors, the resolution is measured by the number of pixels in a given area, or the number of horizontal pixels X number... Read more »
  • RGB monitor (Color Monitor)
    What are RGB monitors? RGB Monitors are computer monitors that use three distinct video signals (red, green, blue) to generate the colors displayed on the monitor screen.
  • RGBI (or IRGB)
    Red Green Blue Intensity (RGBI) is the technology used to generate a 16-color image on early digital-input computer monitors. 16-colors are created by the addition of an intensity bit to the digital signals controlling the three primary colors, red, blue,... Read more »
  • RS-170
    What is RS-170? RS-170 was the original black-and-white television signal standard defined by the EIA (Electronics Industries Association). The RS-170 video standard specifies the timing and signal characteristic of broadcast video in the United States, Japan, and several other markets.... Read more »
  • RS-170 RGB
    RS-170 RGB refers to RGB signals timed to RS-170 specifications. In RS-170 RGB, the red, green and blue signals are actually three individual monochrome signals representing their respective red, green, and blue colors which conform to the RS-170 video format,... Read more »
  • RS-170A (NTSC Color Video)
    What is a RS-170A (NTSC Color Video)? Twenty years after the drafting of RS-170, the EIA video signal standards committee proposed the RS-170A color video standard, which evolved into what is known today as the NTSC composite video signal standard.... Read more »
  • RS-343
    What is a RS-343? RS-343 is an EIA (Electronics Industries Association) standard for non-broadcast high resolution monochrome video. RS-343 was introduced later than RS-170 and intended as a signal standard for High-definition Closed-Circuit Television. Among other things, it reduced the... Read more »
  • Screen flicker
    Screen flicker describes a flashing, or unsteadiness in an image on a display screen. Flicker most often occurs when the video refresh rate is too low, but it can be due to other video related issues and, in some cases,... Read more »
  • Shadow mask
    On standard color CRT monitors, the shadow mask is a perforated metal screen located behind the faceplate of a color CRT to ensure the three colored beams hit the appropriately-colored phosphor dot. All early color televisions and the majority of... Read more »
  • SuperTwisted Nematic
    What is STN? Abbreviated as STN, SuperTwisted Nematic is a type of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) used in portable computers and flat panel displays. STN builds on the twisted nematic (TN) construction method, which twists liquid molecules, causing the LCD display to... Read more »
  • SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array)
    What is a Super Video Graphics Array? Short for Super Video Graphics Array, SVGA is a set of video standards introduced by IBM in 1987 as an extension of the VGA standard. In 1989, Super VGA was adopted and defined... Read more »
  • VDU
    What is VDU? Short for Visual Display Unit, or Video Display Unit, VDU is a term used to describe a device a computer uses to display visual information. Although flat panel displays, monitors and projectors are all examples of a... Read more »
  • VESA – Video Electronics Standard Association
    What is VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association)? Short for Video Electronics Standard Association, VESA is an international standards organization founded in the late 1980s by a group of monitor and video card manufacturers to define various display standards for computer... Read more »
  • WSXGA (Wide SXGA)
    What is WSXGA? Short for Wide SXGA, WSXGA is a resolution that supports 1600 by 900 pixels or 1600 x 1024 pixels.
  • WUXGA (Wide Ultra Extended Graphics Array)
    Short for ‘Wide Ultra Extended Graphics Array’, WUXGA has a resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels.
  • WXGA
    What is WXGA? Short for Wide XGA, WXGA is a video resolution that supports a maximum resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels.