In digital recording, digital audio and digital video is directly recorded to a storage device as a stream of discrete numbers, representing the changes in air pressure (sound) for audio and chroma and luminance values for video through time, thus making an abstract template for the original sound or moving image.
Analog audio (sound), or analog video made of a continuous wave must be converted into a stream of discrete numbers, representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, and chroma and luminance values for video.
Beginning in the 1980s, music that was recorded, mixed and mastered digitally was often labelled using the SPARS code to describe which processes were analog and which were digital.
Read more about Digital Recording: History, Process, Getting The Bits Recorded
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)