Interesting Article in Business Week - Analog vs. Digital

[jay bee]

Interesting article in this week's issue of Business Week titled "Do

We Have to Have a Digital Revolution?" w/ subhead "The latest

technology is not always the best" (2/2 edition). While its largely

about photography it also goes into digital's impact on music and

timekeeping of all things.

 

I'll post a link but I believe that unfortunately you need to be a

subscriber to view.

 

http://www.businessweek.com/@@P9IQsWQQkwkZ3QkA/premium/content/04_05/b

3868044.htm?se=1

 

Not looking to incite any sort of riot, but it did resonate with me

and the reasons why I continue to love my Leicas.

[peter_evans4]

If it says anything interesting about the camera/film biz that hasn't already been said, perhaps you could summarize the novel bits. Or even [gasp!] copy and paste them ("fair use" and all that).

[jay bee]

hope y'all will visit me in copyright jail ;-),

 

Commentary: Do We Have To Have A Digital Revolution?

The latest technology is not always the best

 

 

Say it ain't so! O.K., so maybe most people weren't surprised when Eastman Kodak Co. (EK ) recently decided to exit the film-camera business in the U.S. and Europe. With industrywide sales of digital cameras certain to pass those of traditional cameras this year, the film pioneer had little choice. Yet I couldn't help feeling sad -- not so much for Kodak as for the rest of us. In the world's headlong rush to embrace everything digital, we're losing a lot to the bells and whistles of digital technology.

 

Now, I'm certainly no Luddite. I write about digital technology for a living, and the thought of giving up my laptop computer and going back to a typewriter gives me the shakes. But behind the sleek facade of the digital age there lurks a dirty little secret. Creaky old "analog" technologies such as film, vinyl phonograph records, and, yes, even mechanical clocks with revolving hands boast a raft of advantages -- a richness, longevity, and human scale -- that most of their digital counterparts are not yet able to match.

 

SOUNDS WORSE. Many audiophiles, for instance, swear that well-produced, well-maintained vinyl records produce warmer, more pleasing music than compact disks. "The old vinyl sounds better," insists Al Farleigh, owner of Big Al's Record Barn in the Silicon Valley city of Santa Clara, Calif. And digital degradation is accelerating. Nobody will ever ask: "Is it real or is it MP3?" The compression technology for which MP3 is named produces even worse sound than CDs. That weakness is most apparent on classical music, but my old Jamaican-made reggae records -- even disregarding the skips and pops -- also boast noticeably louder bass than the same music on MP3s or CDs. (Just ask my neighbors.)

 

Even analog clocks still outperform their silicon counterparts. The old battery-operated timepiece that hangs on my kitchen wall keeps far more accurate time than the digital versions installed inside my personal computer, which inexplicably seem to depend on poorly designed clock circuits. Plus, there's just something about hands sweeping slowly around the clock face that captures the nature of time better than a numerical readout.

 

The decline of film, though, troubles me the most. I've held off buying a digital camera because the affordable models, at any rate, still can't guarantee they'll catch that special twinkle in my daughter's eyes. Even $1,500-plus, 10-megapixel cameras barely match the resolution that film is able to provide. Eventually, the relentless march of chip technology may produce cheaper digital cameras that rival the quality of actual film. But for now, I just don't want to leave pixelated photographs to my grandchildren.

 

There's a more insidious problem yet with digital photography: the lack of believability it has created in a medium that was once prized for its accuracy -- and authenticity. In fact, the ability to make changes in the original image, such as moving the moon to a more pleasing location or removing an ex-spouse from a photo, is marketed as a prime reason to go digital.

 

With digital prints, notes the renowned landscape photographer Christopher Burkett, "nothing about the image remains sacred, and the viewer is left wondering how much of it is real." Granted, even Ansel Adams was renowned for his darkroom fiddling with prints. But I doubt that his art would move viewers as much as it does if they suspected it wasn't a faithful reproduction of what he saw.

 

NO-BRAINER. Not the least, film and other analog technologies are easier for people to use. Try as they might, the makers of electronic books have failed to dislodge the traditional book printed on paper -- because it's dead obvious how to use it, you can take it anywhere, and it will never need a new battery. Even more important, analog stuff such as books and traditional photos endure -- in some cases for centuries. Digital formats are changing faster and faster, making orphans of erstwhile standards such as floppy disks.

 

In the course of time, advances in chip and storage technology will overcome many of these limitations. Indeed, I confess that, for quick snapshots, I'm eyeing one of those cute new digital cameras -- the ones so small they fit in a shirt pocket. That way, I'll still have a free hand to tote my trusty old film camera.

 

By Robert D. Hof

 

[charles_stobbs2]

To add another example, digital car radios drift with time and cannot be fine tuned. The older radios with variable capacitors could always be tweaked with the tuning knob and the manual buttons reset to match.

[george_shihanian]

Yes but with this fast-paced society with everyone leasing their cars for anywhere from 24 to 39 months, who cares about such things? Heck, they don't even change the oil, they just use the hell out of it and toss it aside for some unsuspecting buyer to find all these things out.

[mario_mazariegos]

Love my leicas, maybe when a digital gizmo lasts more than 5 yrs without being obsolete I'll buy into it. At least I know my leicas will be good in 20 yrs, (hopefully we still have film by then!) Meanwhile I'm happy to keep shooting. Regards,

[Spearhead]

Just like the WSJ, Business Week knows as much about photography (and sound) as I do about the stock market.

 

I would add that the audiophile stuff is funny. Most everything (excluding a small number of specialty recordings) is digitally recorded and mastered these days, and a lot of the new vinyl recordings that get raves start as digital. So there must be some artifacts added that have nothing to do with the music that people enjoy listening to. I'm not arguing that digital sounds better, just pointing out that there is a bizarre logic in some of this.

[jay_.]

Magazine and newspaper editorials and impassioned rants on the internet will not save film, only sales have the power to do that. It's all about the money, just like 99.9% of everything else on this planet.

[jay bee]

Jay,

 

Don't think the object of the piece is to save film and it was far from a rant. More food for thought in my mind. Then again, some see the need to make everything so polarized...

[erik_asgeirsson]

One thing to keep in mind with regard to the longevity of digital is that even if the camera quality is 'good enough' to last for years, who's to say that the ability will be there to transfer the files to your computer? Already certain I/O ports (parallel printer cables for example) and ISA card slots are missing from modern computers. Even USB will soon be completely replaced by USB 2.0. Once these current I/O ports disappear from computers, your camera will only be good for viewing on the little LCD screen. Sure, you could keep your current top of the line dual P4 or G5 for the future, but electronics (and specifically hard drives) do fail, and once they do, finding parts will be very difficult.

[neal_shields]

Jeff, I totally agree.

 

 

Go look at Popular Photography's explaination of the Olympus 4/3 chip about 4 issues back. They said that 4/3 of an inch was the diagonal measurement of the chip.(Note when I was in school 4/3" converted to 1.33333" and was not, as much digital hipe is, a matter of opinion.) When that is true it should be front page of the WSJ. When Popular Photography is clueless why worry about business magazines?

[kelly_flanigan1]

Here my 3000 dollar Pentium 90 Mhz box keeps perfect time; its clock is accurate to the minute when I do the seasonal time change gambit. My newer 400 dollar 566Mhz emachine looses about 3 minutes a week; it probably has a resonator; or a poor cut crystal reference for the clock. Our 1000 dollar HP P4 2.5 Ghz box is just as bad with its clock too. <BR><BR><b>Kodak is not exiting the film business. </b>Hell why not make up other lies? Maybe Canon is dropping the entire EOS line; and getting out of all cameras. Maybe paper will be removed from all bathrooms. Maybe the Middle East friction will stop forever. Maybe the sun wont rise again. Maybe dum Film versus Digital threads will end. :)

[allen_quinn1]

"Maybe paper will be removed from all bathrooms."

 

Digital toilet paper....that's a hoot!!!

[jay_.]

Watch "Demolition Man" the next time it's on TV.

[keith_merrill]

"Watch "Demolition Man" the next time it's on TV."

 

Well if its on TV then it must be true. Better learn those three seashells.

[tom h.]

It's just like those pesky DVDs- they'll never catch on, right?

 

Tom

[kelly_flanigan1]

Sandra replaced Lori Petty in Demolition Man. I have an original 35mm slide of Sandra from "Working Girl"; one of her first skits after WLHS.

[fotografz]

Erik, USB 2 is backwards compatible with USB 1, at least on a Mac.

[thomas_sullivan]

the inherent problem with digital reproduction of sound and video is granularity. Not film grain....different subject.......but the relationship between each piece of data in the digital format and how that relationship is sensed by a human being's sensory devices.

 

When a sound, which is in the technical form of a sine wave....an "S" shape....is digitally reproduced, it is no longer a sine wave, it is a square wave.....imagine an "E" with the bottom half of the vertical on the right side to form a squared off "S". Unless you sample this with a significant amount of digital bits...ie 16 bit, 18 bit, 16 bit oversampling schemes....and sample it at a fast enough rate....ie 44.1 khz, etc.....the human ear can hear the difference. The 16 bit, 44.1 khz that is the audio CD standard....as proven by experts in the field, at the time CD was first released....is the wrong sampling rate. If memory serves me correctly, the proposed minimum should have been 18 bits at 96 khz. This according to what i have read would be the level at which the human could not hear the differences. Why did the business types go with the lesser rates.............well, who can hear that good anyhow, the said...........apparently quite a few people. So they put CD out, claimed it superior, everybody bought it and now we're stuck with it......well, they did come out with the myriad of oversampling schemes, which helps.

 

But, unfortunately now that everybody has CDs....and are satisfied with them..............they finally release the correct bit and sampling rate.............its called DVD................you want great digital audio, get a DVD audio relaese.................oh, they dont make that many you say...........yeah, unfortunately.

 

As far as Jeff's comment on digital recordings even for analog vinyl, if i'm not mistaken, those digital audio tape machines that most of that music is first started on is at the right rates. So whereas ananlog maintains that level, CD kinda chops it up a bit. At least that is how it is to my understanding.

 

Now, the visual..............before they eliminate film (the analog), i certainly hope some 3rd party group fully investigates at what level of "bit and sampling rate" all this visually oriented stuff should be done at. Cause i for one, don't really trust the manufactures to tell me the truth. Although, on the surface, I think they might actually be doing it correctly. Although TIFF is appearing to go the wayside in cam...............RAW is there in the higher end cams...........btw -jpg is the equivalent of MP3 in my book.........plus the pursuit is for higher and higher megapixels.....to name two. I really wish they would split up the 3 colors into seperate entities though.....i have no personal tech knowledge why, but it sounds like the right way to go.........foveon started, but screwed up...errrr....well they just screwed up ;o)

 

so, anyhow, as long as they keep going in the direction of trying to get as much data recorded, they are going in the right direction for me. I think that is the key..........like audio, visual digital will never actually equal analog..........it is always going to even ever so sightly have squared off edges............but the trick is to have enough data, so that when you convert the digital to analog, the human eye does not notice it.

 

IMHO

[erik_asgeirsson]

Marc, while USB 2.0 is backwards compatible, what happens when the USB connector is replaced with a different cable due to physical restrictions on the data transfer rate? Ten years ago, every computer had legacy ISA and PCI card slots, now it's next to impossible to find any ISA cards on any new motherboard. In ten or fifteen years, the same will be true of USB, while I can still find film for LF cameras of a hundred years ago. Another example would be SIMM and DIMM memory slots on old motherboards (early '90s). The SIMM simply could not handle the density of DIMM, and look at what's happening now: DIMM SDRAM is being replaced with DDR SDRAM, which is not backwards compatible. Suddenly your old 512mb memory cards are worthless, unless you use them in an obsolete computer. Even PS/2 keyboard connectors made the older, larger keyboard connector (PS?) obsolete, although in that case an adapter was available which maintained functionality.

[daniel_taylor]

"like audio, visual digital will never actually equal analog..........it is always going to even ever so sightly have squared off edges"

 

Every recording method, analog or digital, is limited by the "blocks" which represent information in the recording. In digital those blocks are numbers derived from signal measurements. In analog audio those blocks are magnetic particles or groove variations. In analog photography those blocks are silver grains (B&W) or dye clouds (color).

 

Put another way, every recording method has its edges. The edges in analog are just more random and blurred. If recording system A has finer blocks than recording system B, then recording system A is going to measure better regardless of which is digital and which is analog. It's going to record more useful information. So yes, in both audio and video digital can equal and exceed analog if the digital system records with finer blocks than the analog system. And vice versa.

 

The inherent advantage in digital is in storage and transmission. Digital signals do not degrade due to the imperfections of storage or transmission systems unless those imperfections become greater than the binary indicators themselves. But with analog the finer the blocks of the recording, the more likely storage and transmission imperfections are going to degrade the signal.

 

As far as the audiophile debate is concerned, CD's measure better than LP's in a lab. A person may indeed prefer the sound of an LP, but that is an emotionally driven preference. A CD is using finer blocks and recording more information about the audio signal. I do not buy for one second that LP fans are hearing some special difference between the theoretically "square wave" coming off a CD and the theoretically "sine wave" coming off an LP when lab measurements demonstrate that the CD "square wave" is, in fact, truer to the original sound wave. I think they've jumped on the terminology of signal theory to try and illustrate that something is "missing" from digital audio, when in fact the analog systems they're using record less information and therefore could be said to be "missing" something. Again, it's not that they don't sound different, they do. And I respect someone's personal preference on the matter. Listen to whatever gives you the most joy. But recognize it is just an emotional response.

 

As far as photography goes, digital measures better in a number of ways than film today. It has a much higher signal-to-noise ratio. It has higher acutance/MTF response. It also has more accurate color response, especially under non-daylight conditions. It has less exposure latitude, the one area where film still measures better. Some film has slightly higher absolute resolution, but its MTF response has dropped so much by the point where it exceeds digital that this is essentially a lost advantage. Note that I'm speaking of sensors of roughly the same size, i.e. 35mm film vs. APS or 35mm sized digital, or 120 roll film to a MF scanning back. It's not fair to compare a digicam with a sensor <110 film to a 645 camera any more than it's fair to compare a MF scanning back to 110 film. Though such comparisons illustrate my point that it's not so much whether the system is digital or analog, it is how fine the system is able to record information.

 

Many people prefer the look of film to digital despite the fact that digital measures better overall. That's fine. Again, use whatever gives you the most joy. But digital can not only equal analog, it has in many ways already exceeded it. There is no inherent superiority to analog. In fact, digital is the signal format with the inherent advantage, an advantage in storage and transmission.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Re USB 2.0 versus 1.1..A <b>few</b> products are abit buggy; My friend has an older Olympus digital; with a USB 1.1 cable connection......It works fine on his original USB 1.1 port; but hangs/snags on his new USB 2.0 port. (added 2.0 USB PCI card). He uses PC's; and is "Mr Controller"....We tried in on several of my PC computers ; and again it always transfers with USB 1.1; and chokes with USB 2.0 Later re tried it on a friends MAC; with only a new USB 2.0/1.1 port; and it hangs/chokes...With my friends PC he uses the new USB 2.0 card for his scanner; and older USB 1.1 port on his motherboard for his digital camera. Not all older USB 1.1 devices are upwardly workable on a USB 2/1.1 port. The "specs" and gurus say stuff is upwardly compatable; in the real world there are exceptions.<BR><BR><BR><a href=" http://www.technoland.com/tl_mb8000.htm"><b>ISA slots are alive and well in the industrial controller market. One can buy new boards that hold 2 gigs of DDR ram; hold 3 ghz processors; have 3 isa slots and 3 pci slots.; AGP video; USB 2.0.......</b></a><BR><BR>Some of the Industrial Motherboards for older P3's have 5 isa slots.......ISA is dead and long gone in the entry level consumer market; but still is used in some industrial controllers; as upgrades...Here we drive a ancient printer with a DOS box; that is a P3 about 1 ghz; and uses an ISA card....It started life with a 486-50Mhz..

[kelly_flanigan1]

In P4's ISA slots are on a few 845G/GL chipset boards. Not sure about the 865 series of P4's. There is a 875P motherboard with 3 PCI 2 ISA 1 shared; 4 gigs of ram; Hyper-Threading Technology Support, video on board; but rats no AGP port!

[kevin m.]

"...But recognize it is just an emotional response."

<p>

Love the give-away wording: <i>Just</i> emotional. Isn't it possible that human senses can't be fully measued by science? And why the contempt for what can't yet be numerically qualified? I think Buckminster Fuller said the problem with modern science is that it's mathematics were simply too crude. It seems that science and the worship of technology have become a modern superstition in their own right.

[richard harris]

I just want that $1500 10 megapixel camera he mentioned.