* Steve Hill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Wed, 06 Jun 2001
| On a CD the laser is reflected off the disc, onto a photodiode which
| produces four analogue voltages. These are then used to perform tracking
| and linear speed adjustments, and are also processed to produce the
| digital data. The signals could just as easily be used to produce an
| analogue audio signal.
Could, but they are not. And though what is there could be interpreted as
an analog signal, it really isn't. Consider this: I whisper "one". I
shout "one". Has the value of "one" changed? My voice is analog, but the
spoken signal is still digital.
[...]
| No. The advantage of CD and MD against vinyl and tape is that they do not
| wear out. The fact that the former are digital and the latter analogue is
| co-incidental. DCC and DAT both wear out yet are digital.
And are insignificant to consumers.
| Laser discs were entirely analogue and do not.
Actually, they do. And the format is (was) insignificant to consumers,
too.
| Admittedly, due to the error correction, digital recordings will handle
| wear better for a while before failing completely where as analogue
| recordings deteriorate more gradually, but it is the medium that
| determines whether wear occurs.
Well, if you want to insist on picking nits, then consider this: microphone
in to a solid state deck, real-time conversion to MPEG-1 Layer III audio,
and stored on compact flash cards. No analog storage involved anywhere.
[...]
| I'm not sure that I understand the point that you are trying to make here.
My point is that the original post making the claim that, paraphrased,
"digital takes more space to store than analog because square waves take up
more space," is wrong.
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