Madrona Digital University

Home electronics has advanced leaps and bounds since the old days of a TV and a radio in the house. Just keeping up with the terminology is daunting let alone what they mean and how they can affect the performance of these systems. Of course, it is our job to design and specify the right system for you. But if you are like us and want to understand how these systems tick under the hood, here are a series of articles to demystify the topic at hand. Be sure to check this section often as we add more articles.

Digital Audio: The Possible and Impossible - Read how something called "jitter" causes digital audio to lose fidelity when moving from one place to the other even though the samples do not change!
Video for Audiophiles - Here is an intensive course in video with special focus for audiophiles wanting to learn the deep fundamentals on video. Covered are video formats, compression, 3-D, audio for video, projection technologies, and more.
Operating System - Ever wonder what the operating system in your PC, Mac, Phone or Tablet does? Here is your concise introduction.
Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) - Learn what they are and why they are a core part of our audio/video products.
Sim2 Nero 3-D projector - Mini review of this innovative and high performance projector from Sim2.
The Design of Mark Levinson 53 Amplifier - Read how this new amplifier breaks new ground in efficient and fidelity.
Audio and Video Formats - Learn how audio and video are encoded for delivery whether it is on the CD, Blu-ray Disc or the Internet.
Cool Technical Terms - Insider technical terms and lingo that most people don’t know.
Projector Technology Demystified - Learn what differentiates projectors and how they produce their images and resulting impact on cost and performance.
Multi-Core CPUs - Cut through the hype and learn what is a core and what it can do for you.
Operating System Drivers - Learn what device drivers are and how they can impact music servers.
Why Computers Crash - Understand what leads to system crashes in your computer.
Networked Security Cameras - Overview of how networked cameras are superior to traditional security cameras.
3-D video - How 3-D video works and its design in current products.
Why Automate Your Home - Useful scenarios for adding automation to your home.
Inside Home Automation Hardware - A look inside of the "brains" of the automation systems: the controller.
Video Basics - Overview of how video is digitized and stored on optical disc (e.g. DVD/Blu-ray) or transmitted over Internet.
Ear Sensitivity to Sound. - Our ear's sensitivity wildly changes with frequency. Read to see how we take advantage of that for compressing music.
Lossless Audio Compression - Learn how it is possible to make your music files smaller with no loss of fidelity.
Digital Audio/Video and Communication Rates - See how much data there is in our audio and video formats relative to our various connection speeds.
Video Compression - And over view of different techniques and their history for compressing video to store it on optical disc or stream on Internet.