D.D. (no that does not stand for Digital design –
the company we run - but Digital Debate)In the past I have pointed out that we have been relying on digits for a long while and that DI is not that new. I refer to our own 4 projector A.Vs. Where a computer – hence digits – control the projectors to produce the imagery which we perceive.For my next piece of ‘thought provocation (?!!!!) a bit of technical first. Just to bring you up to steam we just have to understand the difference between analogue and digital. The analogy is time. Time is analogue, it continuously goes on, although we divide it up; time is continuous. We can display time as analogue - a good old clock face, or digitally - the digital watch. When we take a photograph it is analogue, that is it has an infinite variation of brightness or luminosity, and colour or chroma. If we scan that analogue picture into a computer it is digitised to give a finite number of discrete steps of luminosity and chroma.
In my A.V. of the building of Briston Fair the music is recorded digitally on to a CD, read into my computer, manipulated and then output as an analogue signal to tape. The original slides are analogue, and projected in an analogue way with the brightness controlled digitally. In fact the brightness may be described as digital as I only have 64 different brightness’ to chose from, and only 4 projectors to use. So we can see that the presentation has certain digital qualities about it.
But let's take it a step further. Digitise the photographs. Remember the music is already digital. Now, just as a computer controls the pictures in the analogue presentation, lets now control the digitised pictures by a computer. Is there any difference? When we project slides you could say that you output the result of your efforts to a screen using an output device.
In the conventional case a slide projector is used. In the new case use a projector which outputs a computer screen to a large screen. The question is, is this DI or is it something completely different or even is it the same? In fact how does it compare to my original presentation using what we would call conventional projectors? Both situations use music which has been digitised and eventually output as an analogue sound.
Both presentations use analogue original photographs and output eventually in one case analogue but in digitised steps, in the second case just in digitised steps. In the first case the materials for presentation consist of a tape and 300 or so slides kept in a bulky box, well 2 boxes in fact. In the second case the originating material is one CD. But is the second case an A.V. as many would define an A.V.? Or is it a MultiMedia presentation. This brings us back to the beginning. Should we get up-to-date and call A.Vs. (Audio Visual) M.M. presentations – MuliMedia presentations?
Why should life be simple when it can be made so complicated?