Digital Versus Analog

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Digital technology has been around for quite some time already—Digital cell phone networks, digital cameras, digital videos and more. However, a lot of non-techies still confuse digital technology with analog technology. For most of them, it is simply the modern version of a particular technology. A digital cell phone is the modern version of the older analog cell phone while a digital camera is the newer reincarnation of the older film camera. But that is simply not the case.

Digital technology simply means that its input, output or storage is conveyed in discrete digits and not a continuous curve of values. In mathematics, think of digital as integers and analog as real numbers. In digital there is no in-betweens. A digital clock, for instance, moves from 1:30 directly to 1:31—no in-between—while an analog one moves its hand from 1:30 clockwise a quarter of the way, then half the way and later to 1:31. In the same amount of time, of course. The same is true in digital and analog communications. In an analog communication, the voice disturbs a device which then transmits a range of voltage much like a sine curve; but in digital communication, the voice is sampled and each sample is assigned distinct values which are then transmitted. Those values are then transmitted.

Since analog data has infinite possible in-between quantities and only a small portion of which can be practically sampled in digital data, it can be said that analog data is more faithful to reality and has more quality. But since our senses cannot take advantage of all the additional data that analog provides, whether audio or visual, then moving to digital which is a lot more flexible is the more pragmatic approach.