Spreety TV Online Blog

August 24, 2010

The following entertainment article was written for Spreety TV Online by professional journalist Carolyn Giardina.

Spreety Contributor Richard Kroon Authors A/V Encyclopedia

By Carolyn Giardina

A member of the Spreety family, contributor Richard W. Kroon, has recently had his first book published.

“A/V A to Z” is an extensive, 763-page encyclopedic dictionary of media, entertainment and other audiovisual terms. The dictionary contains more than 10,000 terms whose users would range from prosumers to professional in the field.

Kroon is a former employee of the Motion Picture Association of America. While, there, he came to the realization that as the digital age arrived, both professionals and consumers where finding many terms and concepts to be confusing. Seven years later, and with assistance from more than 30 consultants and editorial assistants, the dictionary was completed.

“This should be useful to anyone who would like to learn more about the industry, including prosumers,” explained Kroon, who is a manager at the program office of Technicolor.

He noted that more and more content consumption is moving to the Internet, and this is reflected in the book. “When you get into Internet distribution, there are some unique terms, for instance ‘HTML streaming’ — what exactly is that, versus a download? Those terms are in the book,” he said. Additionally, the book includes listings such as HDMI, as well as topics such as the limitations and benefits of Digital Video.

Kroon also covers why you might see a letterbox or window-box when viewing content on a TV display. A window-box is described in the book as a widescreen image presented in a widescreen TV inside a black box (meaning that there are black bars on the top, bottom and sides of the image), essentially created a ‘postage stage effect.’ Kroon explained: “With a window-box, you have duelling display aspect ratios. A lot of TVs have a feature where you can zoom in or change the display to correct for some of that.”

Kroon is already working on his next book — a dictionary of terms for the emerging stereoscopic 3D marketplace.