Using computer technology gives us better pictures.

An Introduction to Digital (1)

What Is Digital?

What we have been discussing up to now is called analog video. In the analog process, the bright images on the face of the CCD are changed into higher voltages, and the darker images on the CCD are turned into lower voltages. These are then reproduced on the CRT where the higher voltages create brighter images and the lower voltages create darker images. This process has been around for more than 60 years. But the analog process has a lot of problems. The quality of the picture is limited and can easily be degraded by some equipment. If we could move into the world of computers, we could improve the quality of the picture, maintain that quality throughout the process, and create images and effects that can otherwise only be “seen” in the mind's eye. This is what digital video does. Digital video is a process that uses computer technology and language to create, store, and transmit video images.

What Computers Do

Computers are really very stupid machines. They can only do what we tell them to do and how we tell them to do it. The real brilliance of these machines comes from the men and women who design the internal electronics and who write the software programs that tell the machines how to make those designs work. If you have a basic understanding of what computers deal with, you will have a better appreciation of the people who create and program these machines.

Computers can only do one thing: manipulate numbers; they are number crunchers, calculators. But they can't even handle the numbers 1 through 10 in the same way that you and I can. When you get down to the smallest, tiniest part of the computer's memory, it can only deal with one of two things, as discussed next.