Passionato Glossary

A

AAC

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a standardised, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at many bit-rates. AAC files encoded at lower bitrates (like 96 Kbps) sounds as good as, or better than, MP3s encoded at higher bitrates (like 128 kbps) despite their notably smaller size.

Album

An album is a collection of related audio or music tracks.

B

Bandwidth

This term describes data-carrying capacity, in other words, how much (and how fast) data flows on a given transmission path. Bandwidth is commonly measured in bits or bytes per second. Low-bandwidth (dial-up modem) connections include rates of 56Kbps, while high-bandwidth (broadband) connections deliver more information at a much faster speed. Browser A browser provides a graphical interface to the World Wide Web; it interprets hypertext links, displays images, and lets you view sites and navigate from one Web site to another. Bitrate The average number of bits that one second of audio data will consume. Standard MP3 bit rates are expressed in kbps (kilobits per second – or “k” for short), and can range from very low quality rates like 32k used on some sites to a maximum of 320k, which Passionato uses. The higher the bit rate, the better the sound quality. Burn This is the process of writing data to a CD-R or CD-RW disc. Called burning because a laser is used to create marks on the photosensitive dye layer of the disc. Bytes A rate of data transfer, not to be confused with bits per second (bps). A byte is a number of bits that are usually treated as a unit. Bytes of eight bits usually represent either one letter or two numerals.

C

Compression

This is a generic term for any technology that enables data to take up less space. Compression can be applied to data files, images, audio, or video. CD A Compact Disc (or CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio. Cookies A small data file written to your hard drive by most Web sites. Cookies typically contain such items as passwords, lists of pages you've visited, or the dates when you last looked at certain pages. Web sites usually read the cookies they leave every time you visit in order to track user behavior in aggregate. When you register at a site, cookies can make logging in later unnecessary, but they also enable a site to log every session under your name. Copyright Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights. Control Panel The software equivalent of a physical control panel that provides options for the user to change the appearance or actions in an application.

D

DRM

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and is a technology that can help protect the copyright of artists and record labels by helping prevent illegal and unauthorised copying. Download In any communications session, "download" means receive, and "upload" means send. The download/upload often implies a big/little scenario, in which data is being downloaded from the "big" server into the "little" user's computer. Uploading implies sending data from the little computer to the big computer. Download Manager A function within a larger program that manages file transfers from a remote device to your hard drive. Disk drive This is a storage device that holds, spins, reads and writes magnetic disks or optical (CD, DVD, MO, UDO) disks.

E

Export

To export means to pull data from a software program and save it into a data file. The data from the exported file can then be viewed separately from the file it was extracted from, or the exported file is imported into another program. Encryption This is the reversible transformation of data from the original (the plaintext) to a difficult-to-interpret format (the ciphertext) as a mechanism for protecting its confidentiality, integrity and sometimes its authenticity.

F

FLAC

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. For more details on FLAC please see - http://flac.sourceforge.net Firefox Firefox is an alternative browser to Internet Explorer. Firefox is a small and easy to use open source browser that has many advantages over Internet Explorer. For full details please see - http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/

G

H

Hard drive

Hard drives are the storage medium in desktop and laptop computers as well as all servers and mainframes throughout the world.

I

ID3 tag

This is the information embedded in an MP3 file, such as artist, title, track, etc.Without an ID3 tag, an MP3 would be recognizable only by the name of the file itself. ID3 tags are important to playlists because they identify pieces of music. iPod iPod is a popular brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc iTunes Is known as the digital software from Apple, designed to transfer music to the iPod and iPhone. Import This refers to the process of pulling data into a program. In a personal computer application, to import is to open a file that is in a format different from the format the application creates on its own.

J

K

L

Lossy compression

A compression technique that does not decompress data back to 100% of the original size. Lossy methods provide high degrees of compression and result in very small compressed files, but there is a certain amount of loss to the audio quality when they are restored. Lossless compression A compression technique that decompresses data back to its original form without any loss. The decompressed file and the original are identical

M

Mac

Mac, is a brand name which covers several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. MP3 MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3 (MP3) is a compression scheme used to transfer audio files via the Internet and store in portable players and digital audio servers.

N

O

P

Preview

The preview function allows you to access sample clips of a track before you make your purchase. Player The Passionato Player is a software download that is used to manage and play your Classical music collection allowing you to organise and search for music, maintain and enhance the data of each track and convert your CDs to a format that is suitable for storing in your Passionato collection. PayPal Is a secure web payment processing service. Portable Music Players Is a device that is capable of storing and playing digital media.

Q

R

RAM (random access memory)

RAM is the place in a computer where the operating system, application programs, and data in current use are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computer's processor. Ripping Ripping is a software program that "grabs" digital audio from a compact disc and transfers it to a computer's hard drive

S

Search Engine

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. SSL Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol developed for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL uses a cryptographic system that uses two keys to encrypt data − a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only to the recipient of the message. Sync, or Syncing The process whereby files on a hard drive are electronically transferred to a portable music player. This creates duplicate versions of the files on a portable device.

T

Tab

On-screen tabs are widely used in control panels and other setting dialogs. Track One of three main ways to download music. You can purchase downloads by the “track”, which means that a movement, or a segment of a larger work can be purchased individually, without needing to purchase a full-length recording or an entire work. Passionato customers can purchase by “track”, “work” or “recording”.

U

USB port

Universal Serial Bus(USB) is a widely used hardware interface for attaching peripheral devices, such as iPods to your computer.

V

W

WMA Windows Media Audio

An audio compression format similar to MP3, but with digital rights management (copy protection and usage restrictions) built-in by Microsoft. Work One of three main ways of downloading music. To download by “work” means to purchase the entire composition. This may, or may not, comprise the entire recording. Works can be as short as one track, or much longer. An entire opera is considered a “work”, as is a Chopin nocturne. Passionato customers can purchase by “work”, “track” or “recording”.

X

Y

Z