Before color temp - Geek box term. The color temperature at a given brightness level before grayscale calibration. Usually expressed in degrees Kelvin; ideally as close to 6,500K as possible.

Before grayscale variation - Geek box term. Before calibration, using the television's best available presets, the average amount of variation from an ideal of 6,500K, measured over the entire range of the grayscale--typically 20 to 100 IRE in 10-IRE increments.

bit rate - Typically measured in megabits per second (Mbps); used to express the rate at which data is transmitted or processed. For digital television, including digital satellite and cable TV, DVD and HDTV, the higher the bit rate, the more data that is processed and, typically, the higher the picture quality. The DVD format allows up to 9.8Mbps, while HDTV requires 19.25Mbps for full- bandwidth transmission.

black level - The intensity of black in the television picture, frequently referred to as brightness; adjusted to compensate for ambient room light. Black level is set with a TV's brightness control using a PLUGE test pattern. Setting black level correctly is critical to overall picture quality, particularly the ability to see detail in dimly lit scenes of a movie. The term also refers to the ability of a display to produce an inky, deep black, which is often a problem in fixed-pixel displays.

broadcast flag - Copy-protection scheme for over-the-air DTV broadcasts that restricts recording of "flagged" shows. Its function applies only to digital outputs on DTV devices, specifically DTV receivers, TVs, and PC-based DTV tuner cards. Forthcoming flag-compliant products will refuse to digitally output/transfer any flagged show to a nonflagged legacy device or software.

Blu-ray - Format for next-generation recordable HD DVD that uses a shorter-wave blue laser and is supported by most major DVD manufacturers. A single-sided, single-layer disc can hold 25GB of data.