Macintosh Bible, 8th Edition, The

Video Fundamentals

As you probably know already, movies don't really move; they're simply sequences of still pictures that go by so fast they fool your brain into thinking it's seeing motion. This is true whether you're sitting in your neighborhood cineplex watching the latest summer blockbuster, at home watching Steve Irwin taunt a crocodile on your television, or in front of your Mac, watching the latest movie trailers on Apple's QuickTime Web site.

You probably know, too, that everything you see on your Mac's screen is made up of pixels (picture elements)—dots of color, usually 72 to 96 of them per inch. Just as a quick succession of still pictures can fool the brain into perceiving motion, an array of small, closely spaced dots can fool it ...