[ale] OT: camcorder/camera combos

[James P. Kinney III]

All electronics at the device physics level is analog. "digital" is an
artificial constraint.  If the potential between pins 137 and 14 are
between 3.41V and 5.22V, then it is a "1". If it is below that lowest
threshold, it is a "0". 

But if you get down to the sub-atomic physics level, things get digital
again. Devices that rely on tunneling effects have both analog and
digital physics characteristics. The initial excitation is a very
digital process (exactly the right energy to elevate to the proper
electronic level), now some probability get tossed in (what chance does
_that_ electron have of tunneling through the barrier), and some analog
characteristics (what "path" the tunneling electron takes determines the
final potential state. The total transfered electric charge is fixed,
but the total energy (charge + kinetic is not)) show up in the final
output signal. At the end, the CCD reads the accumulated charge in each
pixel. It does this by connecting a near dead short to ground on each
pixel and reading the resulting current.  Some are sensitive enough to
read a single electron! Of course, those require a very stable cooling
setup to get the random noise down.

On Wed, 2002-12-11 at 03:29, Eric Webb wrote:
> On Wednesday 11 December 2002 02:37 pm, Mazukna, Thomas wrote:
> > 3. I was making a point that miniDV is digital, not that it is digital
> > because it is miniDV, hi8 btw is same as miniDV just diferrent tape.
> 
> Are you on crack?  Hi8 is purely analog.  miniDV is purely digital.
> 
> Digi8, as I am led to believe, is analog video digitized just before it hits 
> tape.  
> 
> (Does anyone know if all CCDs are essentially analog in nature, or are there 
> some that are truly digital?)
> 
> -E.
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James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
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GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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