MADI

Multichannel Audio Digital Interface, widely used among audio professionals, defines the data format and electrical characteristics of an interface carrying multiple digital audio channels – as in AES10-2003. It is popular for its large channel capacity – 28, 56, or 64 channels at up to 96 kHz, 24 bits per channel, and up to 3000m connections over optical fiber (or 100m over coax).

MAM

Media Asset Management is used in modern broadcast and post production that increasingly depends on file-based operation rather than the use of tape. MAM can track and manage all aspects of the use and repurposing of media assets so it is clear which assets have been used where. This can help both in technical operations such as adjusting an edit, as well as commercial requirements such as billing. See also: Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Main (Level/Profile) (ML) (MP) See MPEG-2

A B C D E F G H I J

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M N O P Q R S T U V

W X Y Z

Master The master of an edited program holds the material that is used as the source for making all deliverables and other versions (for language, subtitles etc.). Making a good quality master helps to ensure that the deliverables are good. For international distribution the use of 1080 x 1920 24P is generally regarded as the best to ensure good quality deliverables for HD as well as SD requirements. However supplying the best to all media platforms now often requires more than the traditional master can provide. A better form of master may be an uncommitted one, where all the original source material and all the tools used and their settings, are available so that any aspect of editing and finishing can be revisited to make the right best deliverables for everyone. See also: Deliverables

MediaFLO

A technology to transmit video and data to portable devices such as mobile phones and personal televisions, used for mobile television. In the United States, the service powered by this technology is branded as FLO TV. See also: DVB-H, DMB

Metadata Data about data. In Digital Asset Management (DAM) metadata is the description of the asset and the description depth can vary depending on the needs of the system, designer, or user. Metadata can describe, but is not limited to, the description of: asset content (what is in the package); the means of encoding/decoding (e.g. JPEG, tar, MPEG 2); provenance (history to point of capture); ownership; rights of access; as well as many others. This is important for labeling and finding data – either in a ‘live’ data stream or an archive. Within studios and in transmission, digital technology allows far more information to be added. Some believe metadata will revolutionize every aspect of production and distribution. Metadata existed long before digital networks; video timecode and film frame numbers are but two examples. See also: AAF, DAM, Content, Essence, History, MXF

Middleware

Software, not hardware. This exists above the operating system to provide a middle layer offering APIs for applications programmers but it is not an application itself. An example is Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) which is widely used in set-top boxes.

Miniaturization (Stereoscopic)

Confusing visual cues in a stereoscopic scene that can make an object appear to be the ‘wrong’ size i.e. the impression of being strangely reduced in size. This is due to the choice of an interaxial distance of greater than 63.5 mm relative to the focal length of the camera lenses e.g. shooting with very widely spaced cameras. Subjectively this makes the audience feel like a giant looking at tiny objects, which is why miniaturization is sometimes referred to as Lilliputianism. See also: Gigantism, Interocular

Mobile TV

This is where broadcasters and mobile (cell) telcos are coming together to allow consumers to access video content on their mobile phones. This includes downloads to flash memory, 3G streaming and mobile digital broadcast TV. The landscape is complex as there are many competing formats including DVB-H, DVB-SH, MediaFLO, ISDB-T, S-DMB/T-DMB in different regions and backed by different hardware manufacturers, technology suppliers, content providers and mobile operators. China is adding its homegrown China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB). In Europe, the European Union has decided to support the DVB-H standard for mobile TV. DVB-H uses a separate broadcast network, rather than a phone network, to send TV content to phones or mobile devices.

Modem Short for modulator/demodulator, it is a two-way communications interface working between a communications channel, such as a DSL line, and a machine – such as a computer.

Moore’s Law

A prediction for the rate of development of modern electronics. This has been expressed in a number of ways but in general states that the density of information storable in silicon roughly doubles every year. Or, the performance of silicon will double every eighteen months, with proportional decreases in cost. For more than two decades this prediction has held true. See: Disk drives

Moiré

Refers to a distortion that appears as patterning seen on images where two similar fine patterns overlap, for example two fine gratings can appear to produce diagonal lines. The affect can appear even when one to the patterns is normally invisible, such as the sampling frequency of the image. In a good image system this should be avoided by use of filters but, for instance, the fine detail of a grid pattern may suddenly collapse and appear as curves or diagonal lines as the camera zooms in and the pattern detail nears the digital sampling frequency.

MOS Media Object Server (protocol) – a communications protocol for newsroom computer systems (NCS) and broadcast production equipment. It is a collaborative effort between many companies to enable journalists to see, use, and control a variety of devices from their desktop computers, effectively allowing access to all work from one screen. Such devices include video and audio servers and editors, still stores, character generators and special effects machines. MOS uses a TCP/IP-based protocol and is designed to allow integration of production equipment from multiple vendors with newsroom computers via LANs, WANs and the Internet. Website: www.mosprotocol.com

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS