Glossary: Letter M

MPEG-4 Part 14: the most widely used digital multimedia container format. It stores video, audio, subtitles, and metadata, and is the standard for web video delivery.

Musepack: a lossy audio codec optimized for high-quality transparent compression. It is based on MPEG-1 Layer-2 algorithms with significant improvements.

Moving Picture Experts Group: a family of digital video and audio compression standards. MPEG-1 is used for VCD, MPEG-2 for DVD and digital TV broadcasts.

Multiprotocol Label Switching: a routing technique that directs data through a network using short path labels rather than long network addresses, enabling fast and efficient packet forwarding. MPLS i...

Microsoft Outlook Message: a proprietary format for storing email messages, contacts, appointments, and tasks in Microsoft Outlook.

Windows Installer Package: a database-driven installation format for Windows software with rollback, advertising, and on-demand installation.

Windows Installer Patch: a patch file for updating software installed via MSI packages without full reinstallation.

MPEG-2 Transport Stream files used by AVCHD camcorders and Blu-ray discs for HD video recording and playback.

Model-View-Controller: a software architectural pattern that separates an application into three interconnected components: the Model (data/business logic), the View (user interface), and the Controll...

Mach Object: the native executable and object file format for macOS and iOS. It is the Apple equivalent of ELF on Linux.

A branch of artificial intelligence that enables systems to learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning algorithms use statistical techniques to identify pa...

A build automation file used by the Make utility. It defines rules and dependencies for compiling and linking programs, widely used in C/C++ and Unix development.

Malicious software designed to infiltrate, damage, or gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Malware includes viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, spyware, and adware.

A cyberattack where the attacker secretly intercepts and potentially alters the communication between two parties who believe they are communicating directly with each other. TLS/SSL certificates and...

An open-source relational database management system created as a community-developed fork of MySQL. MariaDB maintains compatibility with MySQL while adding new storage engines, security features, and...

A lightweight markup language created by John Gruber for formatting plain text. Widely used for documentation, README files, and content on platforms like GitHub and Stack Overflow.

An open standard by the Academy Software Foundation for transferring rich material and look-development content between applications and renderers. Adopted by USD, Blender, and major VFX tools.

A database object that stores the precomputed results of a query physically on disk, unlike a regular view which re-executes the query each time. Materialized views improve performance for complex agg...

Project Object Model: an XML configuration file for Apache Maven defining a Java project's build process, dependencies, and plugins.

The native file formats of Autodesk Maya, a leading 3D animation and VFX software. .ma is the human-readable ASCII format; .mb is the more compact binary format. Industry standard in film, TV, and gam...