What is analog? Easily explained
"Analog" is the counterpart to "digital" - both are related to signal transmissions by technical devices. In this practical tip, we explain what exactly "analog" is.
Sound and video: analog signals
Humans can only process sounds and images analog. This means that signals often have to be transmitted in an analog, stepless, continuous manner. Physical quantities to be transmitted, such as the voltage, can take on any value and thus differ from digital technology, which can only take on the values 0 and 1.
- Analog audio signal: This electrical signal carries acoustic information. The signal is described by certain variables, such as the voltage or the frequency, which are transmitted over lines. These values can take any value. Digital quantities, on the other hand, only take values at certain times.
- Analog video technology: Here, too, the sizes to be transmitted, which correspond in particular to sound and image, take a continuous course. A video as a sequence of images represents the data flow continuously and is therefore an analog device.
Advantages and disadvantages of analog connections
Electrical signals are transmitted from one device to the next device and are weakened by the line. For example, speaker cables can affect sound and performance.
- Advantage: Analog circuits can be implemented relatively easily with electrical components such as capacitors or coils. This is where the difference to digital technology becomes apparent, which mostly uses complex components to process digital values.
- Disadvantage: Every time analog signals are transmitted, there are often distortions, so that the signal is changed along the way. For example, voltages at the end device are often lower than at the output device and are often output in a distorted form. This has the disadvantage that a sound is no longer so audible to humans due to distortion.
In our next practical tip, we will show you the differences between VGA and DVI.