Digital Recording

Analog recordings were the only ones made until the digital revolution of the 1970s, and used a variety of methods that are now considered outdated like long-playing (LP) records, eight-track tapes (on either metal or magnetic tape), and home movies. In the history of sound and video recording from early in the twentieth century until the 1970s, the analog system seemed ideally suited to recording because sound and light both have linear properties; however, with the technological revolution that occurred late in the century, high speed and other characteristics of digital processing made digital recording possible, as did steadily falling costs due to mass production of computers, plastic coated discs, laser players, and other devices. The word "digital" means that numbers are used and refers to the encoding of signals as strings of zeros or ones. Digital recording has higher fidelity in sound and video because it provides a wide range of dynamics and low levels of distortion, which make analog recording less like the source sound or image.