Sun Surveillance, wireless solar powered video surveillance, glossary c

The Glossary

An all inclusive glossary of security lingo is provided for your convenience. This list
will undoubtedly be helpful when delving in to the realm of security.

C:

Cable equalization - The process of altering the frequency response of a video amplifier to compensate for
high frequency losses in coaxial cable.
CAD - Computer-aided design. This usually refers to a design of system that uses computer specialized
software.
Candela [cd] - A unit for measuring luminous intensity. One candela is approximately equal to the amount
of light energy generated by an ordinary candle. Since 1948 a more precise definition of a candela has
become: "the luminous intensity of a black body heated up to a temperature at which platinum converges
from a liquid state to a solid".
CATV - Community antenna television.
C-band - A range of microwave frequencies, 3.7~4.2 GHz, commonly used for satellite communications.
CCD - Charge-coupled device. The new age imaging device, replacing the old tubes. When first invented in
the 1970s, it was initially intended to be used as a memory device. Most often used in cameras, but also in
telecine, fax machines, scanners, etc.
CCD aperture - The proportion of the total area of a CCD chip that is photosensitive.
CCIR - Committée Consultatif International des Radiocommuniqué or, in English, Consultative Committee
for International Radio, which is the European standardization body that has set the standards for
television in Europe. It was initially monochrome; therefore, today the term CCIR is usually used to refer to
monochrome cameras that are used in PAL countries.
CCIR 601 - An international standard (renamed ITU 601) for component digital television that was derived
from the SMPTE RP1 25 and EBU 3246E standards. ITU 601 defines the sampling systems, matrix values
and filter characteristics for Y, Cr, Cb and RGB component digital television. It establishes a 4:2:2 sampling
scheme at 13.5 MHz for the luminance channel and 6.75MHz for the chrominance channels with eight-bit
digitizing for each channel. These sample frequencies were chosen because they work for both 525-line
60Hz and 625-line 50Hz component video systems. The term 4:2:2 refers to the ratio of the number of
luminance channel samples to the number of chrominance channel samples; for every four luminance
samples, the chrominance channels are each sampled twice. The Dl digital videotape format conforms to
ITU 601.
CCIR 656 - The international standard (renamed ITU 601) defining the electrical and mechanical interfaces
for digital television equipment operating according to the ITU 601 standard. ITU 656 defines both the
parallel and serial connector pin outs, as well as the blanking, sync and multiplexing schemes used in
both parallel and serial interfaces.
CCTV - Closed circuit television. Television system intended for only a limited number of viewers, as
opposed to broadcast TV.
CCTV camera - A unit containing an imaging device that produces a video signal in the basic bandwidth.
CCTV installation - A CCTV system, or an associated group of systems, together with all necessary
hardware, auxiliary lighting, etc., located at the protected site.
CCTV system - An arrangement comprising of a camera and lens with all ancillary equipment required for
the surveillance of a specific protected area.
CCVE - Stands for closed circuit video equipment. An alternative acronym for CCTV.
CD - Compact disc. A standard of media as proposed by Philips and Sony, where music and data are
stored in digital format.
CD-ROM - Compact disk read only memory. The total capacity of a CD-ROM when storing data is 640 MB.
CDS - Correlated double sampling. A technique used in the design of some CCD cameras that reduce the
video signal noise generated by the chip.
CFA - Color filter array. A set of optical pixel filters used in single-chip color CCD cameras to produce the
color components of a video signal.
Chip - An integrated circuit in which all the components are micro-fabricated on a tiny piece of silicon or
similar material.
Chroma crawl - An artifact of encoded video, also known as dot crawl or cross-luminance, Occurs in the
video picture around the edges of highly saturated colors as a continuous series of crawling dots and is a
result of color information being confused as luminance information by the decoder circuits.
Chroma gain (chroma, color, saturation) - In video, the gain of an amplifier as it pertains to the intensity of
colors in the active picture.
Chroma key (color key) - A video key effect in which one video signal is inserted in place of areas of a
particular color in another video signal.
Chrominance - The color information of a color video signal.
Chrominance-to-luminance inter-modulation (crosstalk, cross-modulation) - An undesirable change in
luminance amplitude caused by superimposition of some chrominance information on the luminance
signal. Appears in a TV picture as unwarranted brightness variations caused by changes in color
saturation levels.
CIE - Commission Internationale de l’Eclairagé. This is the International Committee for Light, established
in 1965. It defines and recommends light units.
Clamping (DC) - The circuit or process that restores the DC component of a signal. A video clamp circuit,
usually triggered by horizontal synchronizing pulses, re-establishes a fixed DC reference level for the video
signal. A major benefit of a clamp is the removal of low-frequency interference, especially power line hum.
Cladding - The outer part of a fiber optics cable, which is also a fiber but with a smaller material density
than the center core. It enables a total reflection effect so that the light transmitted through the internal core
stays inside.
Clipping Level - An electronic limit to avoid overdriving the video portion of the television signal.
C-mount - The first standard for CCTV lens screw mounting. It is defined with the thread of 1'' (2.54 mm) in
diameter and 32 threads/inch, and the back flange-to-CCD distance of 17.526 mm (0.69''). The C-mount
description applies to both lenses and cameras. C-mount lenses can be put on both, C-mount and CS-
mount cameras; only in the latter case an adaptor is required.
CMYK - A color encoding system used by printers in which colors are expressed by the "subtractive
primaries" (cyan, magenta and yellow) plus black (called K). The black layer is added to give increased
contrast and range on printing presses.
Coaxial cable - The most common type of cable used for copper transmission of video signals. It has a
coaxial cross- section, where the center core is the signal conductor, while the outer shield protects it from
external electromagnetic interference.
CODEC - Code/Decode. An encoder plus a decoder is an electronic device that compresses and
decompresses digital signals. Codec’s usually perform A/D and D/A conversion.
Color bars - A pattern generated by a video test generator, consisting of eight equal width color bars.
Colors are white (75%), black (7.5% setup level), 75% saturated pure colors red, green and blue, and 75%
saturated hues of yellow, cyan and magenta (mixtures of two colors in 1:1 ratio without third color).
Color carrier - The sub-frequency in a color video signal (4.43 MHz for PAL) that is modulated with the color
information. The color carrier frequency is chosen so its spectrum interleaves with the luminance spectrum
with minimum interference.
Color difference signal - A video color signal created by subtracting luminance and/or color information
from one of the primary color signals (red, green or blue). In the Beta cam color difference format, for
example, the luminance (Y) and color difference components (R–Y and B–Y) are derived as follows:

Y = 0.3 Red + 0.59 Green + 0.11 Blue
R–Y = 0.7 Red – 0.59 Green – 0.11 Blue
B–Y = 0.89 Blue – 0.59 Green – 0.3 Red

The G-V color difference signal is not created because it can be reconstructed from the other three signals.
Other color difference conventions include SMPTE, EBU-N1 0 and MII. Color difference signals should not
be referred to as component video signals. That term is reserved for the RGB color components. In
informal usage, the term “component video” is often used to mean color difference signals.
Color field - In the NTSC system, the color sub-carrier is phase-locked to the line sync so that on each
consecutive line, sub carrier phase is changed 180º with respect to the sync pulses. In the PAL system,
color sub carrier phase moves 90º every frame. In NTSC this creates four different field types, while in PAL
there are eight. In order to make clean edits, alignment of color field sequences from different sources is
crucial.
Color frame - In color television, four (NTSC) or eight (PAL) properly sequenced color fields compose one
color frame.
Color phase - The timing relationship in a video signal that is measured in degrees and keeps the hue of a
color signal correct.
Color sub carrier - The 3.58MHz signal that carries color information. This signal is superimposed on the
luminance level. Amplitude of the color sub carrier represents saturation and phase angle represents hue.
Color temperature - Indicates the hue of the color. It is derived from photography where the spectrum of
colors is based upon a comparison of the hues produced when a black body (as in Physics) is heated
from red through yellow to blue, which is the hottest. Color temperature measurements are expressed in
Kelvin.
Comb filter - An electrical filter circuit that passes a series of frequencies and rejects the frequencies in
between, producing a frequency response similar to the teeth of a comb.
Comb - Used on encoded video to select the chrominance signal and reject the luminance signal, thereby
reducing cross-chrominance artifacts or conversely, to select the luminance signal and reject the
chrominance signal, thereby reducing.
Cross - luminance artifacts - Introduced in the S-VHS concept for a better luminance resolution.
Composite sync - A signal consisting of horizontal sync pulses, vertical sync pulses and equalizing pulses
only, with a no-signal reference level.
Composite video signal - A signal in which the luminance and chrominance information has been
combined using one of the coding standards NTSC, PAL, SECAM, etc.
Concave lens - A lens that has negative focal length, i.e., the focus is virtual and it reduces the objects.
Contrast - A common term used in reference to the video picture dynamic range, i.e., the difference
between the darkest and the brightest parts of an image.
Convex lens - A convex lens has a positive focal length, i.e., the focus is real. It is usually called magnifying
glass, since it magnifies the objects.
CPU - Central processing unit. A common term used in computers.
CRO - Cathode ray oscilloscope (see Oscilloscope).
Crosstalk - A type of interference or undesired transmission of signals from one circuit into another circuit
in the same system. Usually caused by unintentional capacitance (AC coupling).
CS-Mount - A newer standard for lens mounting. It uses the same physical thread as the C-mount, but the
back flange-to-CCD distance is reduced to 12.5 mm in order to have the lenses made smaller, more
compact and less expensive. CS-mount lenses can only be used on CS-mount cameras.
CS-to-C-mount adaptor - An adaptor used to convert a CS-mount camera to C-mount to accommodate a C-
mount lens. It looks like a ring 5 mm thick, with a male thread on one side and a female on the other, with
1' diameter and 32 threads/inch. It usually comes packaged with the newer type (CS-mount) of cameras.
CVBS - Composite video bar signal. In broadcast television this refers to the video signal, including the
color information and syncs.

Courtesy of CCTV Labs and CCTV focus magazine

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