Last updated on January 23rd, 2024 at 02:34 am
How is Analog Video Created?
Analog video is created when a video camera records continuous red, green and red light patterns., resulting in a waveform. .
How Analog Video is Captured in a Video Camera
When light enters the camcorder lens, it hits the image sensor chip, creating an electrical charge.
The stronger the light, the more powerful the electrical signal is. In other words the electrical signal imitates the power of the light and the process is popularly known as light imitation.
The chip has thousands of light sensors which picks up different intensities of red, green and blue (RGB).
So you have a continuous wave of image captured with the electrical signal’s voltage going up and down depending on the intensity of the light captured.
Analog Video Waveform
Digital Camera Captures Analog Signal
It’s not only an analog video camera that captures analog signals. Even a digital camcorder does the same, at least when light enters its lens.
The difference is in a digital camcorder the analog signal is only created but not recorded.
Instead it’s passed through an analog-to-digital converter chip that examines the light intensities captured and converts them into a numerical system (0’s and 1’s) based on the strength of the light.
These numbers are then copied and duplicated throughout the process.When this happens a number zeros (0’s) and ones (1’s) are stacked one on top of another in a binary pattern.
Examples of Analog Video are: Betacam SP (discontinued by Sony in 2001), VHS, VHS-C, Video8 and Hi-8.
Analog Video Drawbacks
When an analog video is duplicated, the copied version experiences generational loss. Those familiar with making a copy of video tape (VHS) would have noticed.
Another drawback is it can’t be captured directly into a computer for editing. It needs a third-party hardware capture device. In other words it needs to be digitized before it could be edited.
