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W
 WAN.  Wide Area Network.
Waveform Monitor.  An oscilloscope used to display the video waveform, usually having
a line counter built in to trigger and display only one line of a video image.
Wavelet.  A particular type of video compression that is especially suitable for CCTV.  Offers
higher compression ratio with equal or better quality to JPEG.
White balance.  An electronic process used in video cameras to retain true colours.  It is
performed electronically and is set on the basis of a white object in the picture.
White level.  This part of the video signal electronically represents the white part of an
image.  It is a voltage of 1V peak to peak (assuming a sync of 0.3V) or 100 IRE whereas the
black level is 0.3V peak to peak or 0 IRE.
Wow and flutter.  Wow refers to low frequency variations in pitch while flutter refers to
higher-frequency variations in pitch caused by variations in the tape-to-head speed of a
tape machine.
W-VHS.  A new Wide-VHS standard proposed by JVC, featuring a high resolution format
and an aspect ratio of 16:9.