Multimedia glossary. (Compute's Getting Started with Multimedia) (Glossary)
by David English

CD-DA. Short for Compact Disc-Digital Audio. Also known as Red Book audio. The CD-quality audio that comes directly from a conventional audio CD or CD-ROM.

CD-ROM. A five-inch plastic disc that can hold as much as 650 megabytes of computer information. A device that can read a CD-ROM disc is called a CD-ROM drive. A CD-ROM drive that meets the MPC standard is capable of delivering data at a sustained rate of 153kb per second.

interactive program. A program that accepts responses from a user, typically through the keyboard, a mouse, or a joystick.

movie file. A Multimedia Movie Player data file with the MMM filename extension. A movie file contains animation objects called cast members and control information called the score.

MPC. Short for Multimedia PC. Any computer, upgrade product, or software title that conforms to the standards set by the Multimedia PC Marketing Council.

multimedia. The combination of graphics, sound, animation, and video in a single software program. Sometimes only two or three of these elements are needed in order for a program to be called a multimedia program. Can also describe any PC, upgrade product, or software title that conforms to the MPC standard.

sound board. Also known as a sound card. An expansion board placed inside a PC that improves the quality of the PC's sound output. A program must support the sound board before it can benefit from the board's improved sound quality.

title. An MPC software program or application. Usually delivered on a CD-ROM disc.

videodisc. Also known as a laser disc. A 12-inch plastic disc that can hold both video images and sound. A device that can play a video-disc is called a videodisc player or laser disc player. A videodisc player device driver can be added to Windows with Multimedia easily through Windows' Media Control Interface (MCI).

waveform audio. A technique for recreating voice and sound effects using digital audio samples. Under the MPC standard, waveform audio data is stored with the WAV filename extension.

Windows with Multimedia. Also known as Microsoft Windows graphical environment 3.0 + Multimedia extensions 1.0. You must install this version of Windows before you can run MPC software. This software is included with all MPC computers and MPC upgrade kits, as well as the Microsoft Multimedia Development Kit (MDK).