This is a diagram of an analog wave:
One of the disadvantages to an analog signal is its susceptibility to be interfered with by noise. Because analog signals are not easily compressed, they are more likely to be warped by unwanted noise.In digital technology, the analog wave is sampled at some interval, and then turned into numbers that are stored in a digital device. Computers do this by converting the signal into a strain of 1's and 0's. A cd player is an example of a digital technology, while an audio cassette player would be an example of an analog one.
Digital recording has many advantages over analog. Primarily, it produces a much warmer, richer, and more natural sound than analog recording. The reason for this is demonstrated in the following picture:
As one can see, because digital signals can be compressed and their waves can only reach a certain height, they are not very susceptible to interference from noise. As a result, the waves maintain their original form and are easily and accurately interpreted by a computer.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing to look at is how consumers can adapt to new and changing technologies. In my reading about digital and analog technology I came across information about analog-to-digital converters (and vice versa). An analog-to-digital converter is a device which converts continuous signals to discrete digital numbers. People may be resistant to change in technology because they have acquired so much of the old technology- people might have resisted cassettes because they had a huge record collection, and they may have resisted cds and mp3s because of their cassette collection. Technology like this converter seems to solve the problem of "losing" a collection and therefore resisting change in technology.
ReplyDeleteThats interesting that you say that digital has a warmer richer sound than analog, seeing as some people think that analog sounds better, or at least captures more of the actual sound than digital does. I wonder if there really is that much of a difference.
ReplyDeleteMost people do believe digital has better sound quality, hence the change from analog to digital cable, as well as the fact that cellular phones use digital technology.
ReplyDeleteWhat i find particularly interesting about digital recording technology is how audio is not recorded continuously but sampled at a certain frequency. Unlike analog, this audio can be sampled at different frequencies allowing for as much detail to be captured or as little, depending on how much information one actually needs. Though analog media such as VHS or Cassettes have varying build quality and length, it still is nowhere near as versatile as a digital format.
ReplyDeleteInteresting diagrams--what's your source of information? And did you make the diagrams up yourself, or get them from somewhere?
ReplyDelete