What is digital?

Anorakus

Anorakus

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Out for lunch with Dad today (90 yrs old but sharp as a pin), he asked me why digital technology is replacing everything - TV, music, photography etc. - and asked if there are any books to read on the subject (he does a lot of reading).

Good question! I'm at a bit of a loss.. no shortage of books on particular areas, e.g. photography, but I can't think of anything on digital technology as a whole, pitched at a layman's level. Any ideas? Christmas isn't far away.. ;)

A.
 
Digital technology is just a series of 1 & 0s, or Ons and Off but carried out as a frighteningly fast pace.
But it also needs far far less storage space than magnetic-based anologue technology (cassettes only has enough room to store up to 90 minutes of music, mp3 players can store literally day's worth!).
Digital transmissions only need a very narrow bandwidth, hence how so many digital channels can all be shown at the same time, ordinary anologue transmission only has room for 4 or perhaps 5 channels, any more and there's the problem of co-channel interference.
I'm sure digital technology has also it's failings, those I'll leave up for others to point out in here. :)
 
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It's apparently called progress. In my opinion, it's usually choosing convenience instead of quality.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
It's apparently called progress. In my opinion, it's usually choosing convenience instead of quality.


Steve.
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Would you like to expand on this? Not challenging you at all, just interested in your point of view.
 
Steve Smith said:
It's apparently called progress. In my opinion, it's usually choosing convenience instead of quality.


Steve.
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I'd be inclined to agree here certainly with regards to television. Take Sky Digital for example, there are so many channels available now and all are squeezed into a very narrow bandwidth that picture quality begins to suffer. It becomes more apparent when you watch fast moving subjects and you get pixellation effects. Some channels are worse than others. The Sky movie channels don't seem too bad at the moment, but I have watched others where quite frankly the picture quality was a joke. I have never had any problems with the old analogue service.
 
I guess I would point him at books on Information Theory, Shannon, etc.

Analogue gives a better representation but digital has advantages in terms of coding and error correction and storage.

Most of the times digitl is used the technical advantages are not used. Things like music and video would be better in analogue. Using digital allows smaller storage/bandwidth at the cost of a loss in fidelity.

Think about the differnece in tonal range with good film compared to the digital images.
 
are you really trying to say that a VHS is better quality than a blu-ray?
 
:popcorn:

Is their any need to even debate it? Digital is now and the future for many many reasons, analogue is fading away for many reasons. As for explaining this to someone through a book....there must be one?
 
Anorakus said:
Out for lunch with Dad today (90 yrs old but sharp as a pin), he asked me why digital technology is replacing everything - TV, music, photography etc. - and asked if there are any books to read on the subject (he does a lot of reading).

Good question! I'm at a bit of a loss.. no shortage of books on particular areas, e.g. photography, but I can't think of anything on digital technology as a whole, pitched at a layman's level. Any ideas? Christmas isn't far away.. ;)

A.
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A quick look on Amazon reveals this although it would just be a stocking filler for Christmas:)
 
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MartynK said:
Would you like to expand on this? Not challenging you at all, just interested in your point of view.
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Take music. Originally on 10" then 12" and 7" discs. Good quality, not very portable, not many tracks per disc. CD - quality good, still not many tracks per disc. Cassette tape - Not as good quality as disc but could be portable. MP3 - awful quality (to my musician's ears) but at least you can carry your entire music collection in your pocket.

Now have a look at press photography. Started out with 5x4 sheet film in a Speed Graphic or Graflex RB, then went to 120 film in a Rolleiflex then 35mm film in a Nikon F. At every stage there was a reduction in quality due to the reduced format size but an increase in convenience.

Today, full frame digital may equal 35mm film for quality but it's nowhere near medium or large format. Many choose digital for convenience though and I quite often hear phrases such as "I haven't got time to wait for processing" and "I couldn't be bothered messing about in a darkroom". Fine. These are personal choices but they are usually for reasons of convenience rather than quality.


Steve.
 
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Sniffing1987 said:
are you really trying to say that a VHS is better quality than a blu-ray?
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No, that isnt what I said at all. You are comparing a 30 year old consumer technology to todays consumer technology.

I was talking about analogue and digital representation of information.
 
Steve Smith said:
Take music. Originally on 10" then 12" and 7" discs. Good quality, not very portable, not many tracks per disc. CD - quality good, still not many tracks per disc. MP3 - awful quality (to my musician's ears) but at least you can carry your entire music collection in your pocket.

Now have a look at press photography. Started out with 5x4 sheet film in a Speed Graphic or Graflex RB, then went to 120 film in a Rolleiflex then 35mm film in a Nikon F. At every stage there was a reduction in quality due to the reduced format size but an increase in convenience.

Today, full frame digital may equal 35mm film for quality but it's nowhere near medium or large format. Many choose digital for convenience though and I quite often hear phrases such as "I haven't got time to wait for processing" and "I couldn't be bothered messing about in a darkroom". Fine, these are personal choices but they are usually for reasons of convenience rather than quality.


Steve.
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And you feel that you can see a noticeable lack of quality in todays DSLRs compared to film formats? I'd beg to differ.

MP3 quality depends on how it was compressed. I used to be well into HIFI until I got real and was honest with myself and my ears. I can't tell the difference between a good quality MP3 rip and an original CD from the shop. I do not have poor hearing. It's like these people that spend £50 on a HDMI lead or an optical lead. It's digital. If it works it works. It can't work badly.
 
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clicktor said:
And you feel that you can see a noticeable difference in quality between todays DSLRs and film formats? I beg to differ.
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Whilst it may be difficult to see any difference in quality between 35mm film and full frame digital when presented as a print, the larger formats are a different matter entirely. Film comes in many formats: 6x6cm, 5x4", 10,8", 12x16", etc and just like digital, the larger formats have the higher quality.

Plus negative film still has a better dynamic range than any digital sensor.


Steve.
 
I have heard of complaints from owners of DAB digital radios saying that the quality of digital broadcasts are inferior to VHF/FM analogue equivalents particularly with regards to music broadcasts, due to the compression used. I still listen on a receiver connected to the hi-fi, but I appreciate that it's days are probably numbered.
 
Carl V said:
I have heard of complaints from owners of DAB digital radios saying that the quality of digital broadcasts are inferior to VHF/FM analogue equivalents particularly with regards to music broadcasts, due to the compression used.
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I read a report last year that stated that radio stations were not satisfied with DAB either and were going to abandon the technology.


Steve.
 
clicktor said:
It's digital. If it works it works. It can't work badly.
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If only that were true. (although I agree that £50cables are taking the proverbial).

Digital can fail or not work in all sorts of ways, thats why we use error correction systems, from simple parity tests through crc or specialist encryption.

In reality the key thing is, as Steve has said, the dymanic range.
 
Carl V said:
I still listen on a receiver connected to the hi-fi, but I appreciate that it's days are probably numbered.
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Not that far away, 2015

I sold the receiver component of my Hi Fi system, an Audiolab 8000T a while back while it still commanded a decent price.
 
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who? said:
In reality the key thing is, as Steve has said, the dymanic range.
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Graceful degradation, too. The quality may not be as good, but its faults are more tolerable q.v. valve amps (OK not a true digi/analogue comparison), and the "shoulder" with film rather than sensor bloom.
 
Do you remember when you had to press A to connect or B to get your money back. Well it's just the same with 0 and 1.
 
if you want decent quality digital audio look up the flac file format its lossless, mp3s are crappy because they are a lossy format like comparing jpeg to tiff ;)
 
As has already been said, digital is 1's and 0's, that is to say binary.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't.
 
Notts_Dave said:
As has already been said, digital is 1's and 0's, that is to say binary.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary and those with friends.
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Edited for accuracy. ;)
 
I know nothing about technology. All I know is I have a very old TV in my bedroom which works fine, a media PC which gave up showing TV programmes about a year after I bought it and a nearly new TV ( digital and HD ready) that I cant get a TV signal on.I think my old TV is analogue so it probably wont work soon.Good job I am not a great TV fan.
 
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