Audio for Single Camera Operation

32 Digital sound

Today, virtually all recorded signals are going to enter the ‘digital domain’ at some stage. It is beyond the scope of this book to explain the ‘mechanics’ of this process in any great depth, but a simplistic overview may help you understand where potential problems lurk.

‘The greatest invention since sliced bread’

A sound signal is a continuous and, for other than a steady tone, varying voltage (Figure 32.1). The first assumption in digitizing is that if you ‘look’ at that voltage once every ‘xth’ fraction of a second, and if ‘x’ is sufficiently small, replicating those values of voltage sequentially every ‘xth’ of a second thereafter will be indistinguishable, by ear, from the original continuous signal (Figure 32.2). Imagine ...