Film is rearranged metal particles on tape which are read by an electromagnet. CDs are discs with burned pits in them which are read by a laser. What makes one analog and one digital?
In: Technology
Film?
Do you mean audio cassette?
In any case, the audio cassette if that’s what you mean, represents a smoothly varying signal, which corresponds to the magnetic field on the tape.
WHen recorded, the audio signal is directly fed into a magnetic head, and that head (which is just a coil of wire) creates a changing magnetic field, which magnetises the tape in a way which directly represents the analog audio signal. There’s no converting happening, except between electrical and magnetic.
With a CD, what’s encoded in the pits and lands is digital data, which has to be fed into an digital to analog converter to turn it back into the sort of signal that can be fed out of a speaker.
Latest Answers