With over 20 million households owning VCD payers by the late 1990s, it is unsurprising that China was instrumental in the development of a successor to the VCD format. The first of three independent … [Continue reading]
VCD Digital Video
The VideoCD format was created to satisfy the demands of both the entertainment and information publishing worlds. The aim was to provide a format capable of delivering their content on an … [Continue reading]
ActiveMovie Technology
ActiveMovie, a Microsoft API that was announced in March 1996, is receiving wide support in the computer industry as "the next generation of cross-platform digital video technology for the … [Continue reading]
Digital Video for Windows
AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) is Microsoft's generic format for digital video in Windows, provided via its MCI (Media Control Interface). AVI allows for a number of compression methods, in real-time, … [Continue reading]
Apple Quicktime
Recognizing the drawback of requiring a costly playback adapter, Apple developed a video format that can be played without special add-on hardware. The result, QuickTime, represents a major milestone … [Continue reading]
Other Digital Video Codecs
There were a number of other popular codes, all supported by Microsoft's VfW, still in use by the late 1990s: Microsoft Video 1: Fast compression but low ratios. Good for full-motion, moderate-quality video … [Continue reading]
IVI Technology
Shortly after the introduction of Apple QuickTime, Intel responded with its Indeo Video Interactive (IVI or Indeo 4.0) codec. This format allows for scaleable software-only video playback. IVI can … [Continue reading]
LCD Resolution and Scaling
LCDs follow a different set of rules than CRT displays offering advantages in terms of bulk, power consumption and flicker, as well as "perfect" geometry. They have the disadvantage of a much higher price, a poorer viewing angle and … [Continue reading]
LCD Light Polarisation
LCD is described as a transmissive technology because the display works by letting varying amounts of a fixed-intensity white backlight through an active filter. The red, green and blue elements of a pixel are achieved through simple … [Continue reading]
RAID tutorial – connecting the hard drives
We're going to be setting up two identical hard disk drives as a single mirrored RAID 1 array. Power the system down, remove the case and fit and connect up the hard disk drives. Refer to the How to install a second hard disk drive tutorial for … [Continue reading]