FIBER CHANNEL-ARBITRATED LOOP (FC-AL)
FC-AL is the first truly open industry-standard serial interface available for high-performance applications. Seagate’s FC-AL-compatible disc drives provide a cost-effective device connection for very large SCSI systems and deliver a dramatic increase in I/O performance with data-transfer rates of 100 Mbytes per second per port. Seagate is a member of the Fiber Channel Loop Community (FCLC), an association of companies that endorses the FC-AL standard.

Field
The set of alternating lines in an interlaced video frame. An interlaced frame consists of two fields -- a top field and a bottom field.  A field is one-half of a complete television scanning cycle (1/60 of a second in NTSC; 1/50 of a second in PAL/SECAM). When interlaced, two fields combine to make one video frame.

Field/frame synchronization
The elimination of video and film frame ambiguity by the use of the full-frame identification process during film-to-tape transfer.

Field frequency
The rate at which a complete field is scanned or displayed, normally 59.94 times per second in NTSC.

Field period
The reciprocal of twice the frame rate.

Film chain
A term used to encompass the total grouping of equipment used to transfer slide or movie film picture frames to electronic picture frames; usually consists of film and slide projectors, a multiplexer and a television camera. Also known as telecine.

Flag
A variable that can take one of only two values. See also parameter.

Flicker
Video effect (usually unwanted) on a still or frozen frame caused when two fields that combine to make the frame are not identically matched, thus creating two different pictures alternating every 1/60 of a second. Interfield flicker can occur when field dominance is incorrectly specified or if field dominance changes at one or more points on the master tape from having been edited on equipment that is incapable of frame-accurate editing. Also known as jitter or jutter. See also interfield frames.

Fogging
Used to add the effect of the scenery fading off into fog, or hide the far clipping plane. By hiding the far clipping plane, users won't see polygons suddenly popping into view in the distance.

Forbidden
When used in the clauses defining a coded bitstream, indicates that the value must never be used. This restriction is usually applied to avoid emulation of start codes.

Forced updating
The process by which macroblocks are occasionally intra coded to ensure that mismatch errors between the inverse DCT processes in encoders and decoders cannot build up excessively.

Forward compatibility
The ability of a coding standard that works with existing decoders to work with new decoders.

Forward motion vector
A motion vector used for motion compensation from a reference picture that comes at an earlier time in display order.

FPM DRAM
Short for Fast Page Mode RAM, a type of Dynamic RAM (DRAM) that allows faster access to data in the same row or page. Page-mode memory works by eliminating the need for a row address if data is located in the row previously accessed. It is sometimes called page mode memory. Newer types of memory, such as SDRAM and EDO RAM are replacing FPM RAM.

Frame
A single, complete picture in a video or film recording. A video frame consists of two interlaced fields of either 525 lines (NTSC) or 625 lines (PAL/SECAM), running at 30 frames per second (NTSC) or 25 fps (PAL/SECAM). Film runs at 24 fps.

Frame buffer
1. A device capable of storing all 525 lines of a television frame and functioning as a time-base corrector.
2. A memory device that stores, pixel by pixel, the contents of an image. Frame buffers are used to refresh a raster image. Sometimes they incorporate local processing ability. The "depth" of the frame buffer is the number of bits per pixel, which determines the number of colors or intensities that can be displayed.
The frame buffer resides in the 3D card's onboard video memory. This is the portion of video memory where the colors are stored and displayed on your monitor.

Frame period
The reciprocal of the frame rate.

Frame rate
The speed at which video frames are scanned or displayed -- 30 frames a second for NTSC, 25 frames per second for PAL/SECAM.

Freeze-frame
A single frame from a segment of video or film footage held motionless on the screen. Unlike a still frame, a freeze-frame is not a picture intended to appear motionless, but is one frame taken from a longer motion sequence.

FRONT SIDE BUS
The bus within a microprocessor that connects the CPU with main memory. In contrast, a backside bus connects the CPU to a Level 2 cache.

Full-frame time code
A standardized SMPTE method of address-coding a videotape that retains all frame numbers in chronological order, resulting in a slight deviation from clock time.

Full-motion video
A video sequence displayed at full television standard resolutions and frame rates. In the US, this would equate to NTSC video at 30-frames-per-second.

Future reference picture
A reference picture that occurs at a later time than the current picture in display order.