Glossary -R-
Rabbit ears — A portable TV set’s two telescoping rod antennas. Also called dipole antenna.
RAID — Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives, a method of providing non-linear editors with many gigabytes of instantly accessible data storage by teaming together a group of slower, smaller, cheaper hard drives.
RAM or random access memory — The size of a computer’s “brain”, measured in bytes, describing the amount of data the computer can process and temporarily store at any moment.
Ramping — Phenomenon that causes the f number of a long zoom lens to increase as it zooms in, creating a dimmer picture.
Raster graphics — Category of 2-D image formats using bitmaps.
Rate card — A published listing of charges for services.
Raw footage — Recordings made directly from the camera, intended to be edited into a final program later.
RC time code or RCTC — Sony time code system for 8mm and Hi8 VCRs. Code identifies each separate frame and is recorded on a special track next to the video signal.
Real estate — The space on a videodisc available for your program.
Real time — Something that plays, records, compresses, or decompresses as fast as it actually happened in real life.
Rear or retro projection — Process of projecting an image onto the rear of a gray, translucent screen, with the viewers on the side opposite the projector.
Rear projection — Technique of projecting an image onto the rear of a translucent screen so that the image can be viewed from the front.
Redo — Paint feature that undoes an undo, bringing back work you may have removed from a picture.
Reentry — The process of creating one special effect and then using it as a source (as if the picture had come directly from the camera) that can now be mixed with another picture to create another special effect. Process allows effects to be piggybacked atop one another.
Reflection — 3-D graphics feature that calculates how light will reflect off shiny surfaces and polished objects.
Refraction — 3-D graphics feature that calculates how light will bend as it passes through clear objects.
Relection map — Flat surface with clouds, stripes, or a “snapshot” of the area, used to make fake reflections off silvery objects.
Remote control — Control of a device such as a VCR with a keypad held in the hand. Most use infrared light signals to communicate with the VCR.
Remote survey — Visit to a distant shooting location to determine production needs, strategy, and resources.
Remote — Switch on a TV that makes it respond to a remote control.
Render — Electronically perform the calculations which create the surfaces, shadows, and reflections in a three dimensional scene.
Repeat switch — Switch on a VCR that tells it to play a tape over when it reaches the end.
Repeater — A receiver/transmitter that picks up a radio signal (or TV or microwave signal) and retransmits it. Repeaters are usually placed up high where their signals can reach farther than portable transmitters.
Replicate — To duplicate a videodisc, CD, or CD-ROM.
Representational set — Background and furniture that look lifelike and realistic. Soaps and sitcoms use representational sets.
Reset — Setting something back to the beginning. Resetting an index counter sets all the numbers to zero.
Resolution — Picture sharpness, measured in “lines”.
Resolution — Picture sharpness, usually measured in “lines”. The greater the number of lines, the sharper the picture.
Retroloop — A digital disk recorder’s ability to continuously record audio and video on a disk and make room for the data by simultaneously erasing what was recorded some time earlier.
Return — Switch on some studio TV cameras that displays the final program image or some other video image (as opposed to the camera’s own image) on the camera’s viewfinder to help the camera operator position objects in the viewfinder. Useful for coordinating with other camera shots.
Revelation — A camera angle that hides something important and then reveals it for dramatic effect.
Reverb or reverberation — The slow decay of a sound when it’s finished, like the ringing in the air heard after you clap your hands. Technically not the same as echo. Reverb is often added to music to make it sound fuller.
Reverberation or reverb — The continuance of a sound after the original sound has ceased. Also the device that artificially adds reverberations to audio.
Reverberation time — The amount of time it takes for a loud sound to fade to silence.
RF generator or modulator — Electronic device which combines audio and video to make RF (radio frequency), a channel number. Usually built into VCRs so that signals may be fed to TV antenna terminals.
RF or radio frequency — The kind of signal which is broadcast through the air and comes from a TV antenna. RF is a combination of audio and video signals coded as a channel number.
RG-59U — Technical name for commonly used coax antenna and video cable.
RGB Key — Chroma key using RGB video sources to define a sharper key effect than is possible with composite video sources.
RGB — Red, green, blue. An RGB monitor displays a picture from three video signals-one for the red parts of the picture, one for green, and one for blue. Also the name given to the kind of video signals which represent component colors, rather than the combined colors.
RGB video — Video signals traveling on three separate wires. Red parts of a colored picture go on one wire; green, on the second; and blue, on the third.
RGB-to-video encoder — Device which changes RGB video signals to composite video signals. This is a part of the scan converter and the term is sometimes used interchangeably with scan converter.
Rippling edit — Non-linear edit that pushes the following scenes later on the timeline leaving them intact and lengthening the show. If a scene is removed, the following scenes move forward on the timeline closing the hole.
RJ11 and RJ45 connectors — Standard telephone plugs and jacks, roughly square and about 1/4 inch wide, used to connect telephones to the wall outlets. Some other non-telephone electronic equipment uses these connectors to carry remote control signals.
RLE — Run length encoded, a non-lossy form of compression that works best with simple pictures having smooth backgrounds.
Rocker switch — A two-way switch that if pressed one way zooms a lens in, and if pressed the other way zooms it out.
Rocker switch — Lever which rocks back and forth. Pressed one way, it could make an electric zoom lens zoom in. The other way would zoom the lens out.
Rolling edit — Edit that adds or subtracts material to/from the timeline, but doesn’t push ahead the following scenes or close them up. Such an edit replaces other material or leaves a blank spot where material used to be.
Room tone — A character, “color,” or individual “personality” of a sound recorded in a particular room, caused by echoes and background noises in the room.
Rotary actuator — Costlier motorized actuator capable of precise horizon-to-horizon aiming of the satellite dish.
Rotator — Motorized rooftop device used to steer a TV antenna in different directions following a command from a console near the TV set.
Rotoscope — Technique of carefully positioning a graphic object into a “real” picture so that an actor may appear to hold or interact with it.
Rough cut — Approximation of what the edited master will took like. Rough cut is generally performed on off-line editing equipment.
Routing switcher — Switch that sends the signal from one of several sources to several destinations. A push-button version of a patch bay.
Routing switcher — Switcher used primarily to connect various video devices together (often with audio-follow-video) to quickly send signals where you want them to go.
RS-232 — A standard serial communications protocol used by computers for all types of digital devices and some specially equipped VCRs.
RS232-C — Standardized multipin computer connection.
RS-422 — A more powerful and flexible derivative of the RS-232 protocol used on industrial video equipment including some VCRs.
Rule of thirds — The center of attention should not be dead center on the screen but one third of the way down from the top, or up from the bottom, or in from the edge of the screen.
Rumble filter — Audio filter to trap low frequencies (rumble from wind, noisy phono records, hum) and pass the rest.
Run length encoding (RLE) — Non-lossy compression method that uses short numbers to describe events that occur often and longer numbers to represent events that are rare.
