Digital is pushing analog out of studios.

The Digital Studio

By this point you may be thinking that there is an awful lot of digital equipment out there, and you would be right. Digital cameras digitize the video information as soon as it comes off of the CCD and send it down the line. Digital distribution amplifiers can send that digital signal to several different destinations. Digital switchers allow you to select, process, and manipulate the digital signal. Character generators, computer-generated imagery equipment, nonlinear editors, and video servers are all digital pieces of equipment. If analog video isn't dead, it is certainly on its last legs. More and more completely digital studios are being built.

A completely digital studio is one in which you start with digital cameras and the signal remains in digital form right to and including the transmitter. The only piece of analog equipment that might remain in the studio, or the home for that matter, will be the CRT displaying the images. But if your final display will be on a plasma display screen, even that is digital. So the signal will be digital throughout the complete process unless it reaches the CRT where it will be converted to analog for final display.

The process of fully converting to digital is occurring faster in large markets and is moving at a slower pace in smaller markets. It is going to cost a lot of money, probably several million dollars for each station. Many stations in the largest markets have already made the change. Stations in smaller markets are taking more time and are purchasing more digital equipment as time goes on until it will be a relatively simple matter to complete the conversion. It is harder to predict what will happen with schools because money is always in short supply.

Eventually, everyone will have to make the conversion to a completely digital system because in not too many years analog video equipment will no longer be manufactured.

The digital studio.