analog

The 404 114: Where all we drink is SPACE BEER

Cheers to the Space Beer Guy, who makes another appearance on the show today to help us debut our new Analog Pants video. We also talk about TBS's intrusive ad placement, Joy Division's upcoming Zune, naked multimedia messages, and why PS3 owners are quickly destroying our planet. EPISODE 114 Download today's podcast

Best Buy challenges FCC over analog TV sales penalty

The Federal Communications Commission says Best Buy and other retailers must pay more than $3 million in fines for selling analog TVs without labels that explain the sets won't work after the digital TV switchover next February.

In a 41-page legal document filed last week (and dug up by Ars Technica), Best Buy essentially says, "Oh yeah? Make us."

There have been many bumps along the way to the February 2009 switch to all-digital TV in the U.S. The FCC is spearheading the transition and has established deadlines to help it along. Best Buy alone was … Read more

Best Buy CEO worried on economy, digital TV transition

LAS VEGAS--Asked about the state of the U.S. economy, Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson said on Tuesday that it is clearly a concern.

"People that are getting their first (home heating) oil bills at $3 a gallon," he said, even as the U.S. mortgage crisis continues to hang over the economy. "The share of mind that the 'r word' is getting in the media has us concerned," he said, alluding to but not uttering, the word recession.

But Anderson said it was the transition to digital television that posed the biggest threat to his … Read more

How digital sound works

Speaking of Zeroes and Ones...

Among audiophiles, the analog vs. digital debate rages without end. I, like a lot of other musicians and music fans, have my own preferences--I own many more LPs than CDs, and have paid dearly to record some of my bands' music onto 2-inch tape instead of direct to hard drive. But included in those preferences are some preconceptions. You've heard it before: digital music sounds "colder" or "cleaner" or "more sterile" because it's delivering a stream of 0s and 1s, instead of a pure sound wave. Or something like that.

Audio professionals don't use terms like these, largely because they're subjective and imprecise, and sometimes inaccurate. Recently, one of these professionals presented the best explanation of analog vs. digital sound that I've ever heard. Here's a super-condensed version of an already simplified explanation.… Read more

Intelligent Design vs Science, analog vs digital, CD vs LP--and the winner is?

Natural sound as we hear it in "real life" is pure analog, but recorded sound is, with few exceptions, chopped up into digital bits. So other than live music concerts pretty much every note you hear is digital. Whether you're listening to an iPod, the internet, TV, CDs, DVDs, or the radio, they're all digital in one way or another. We have as a species evolved over the eons to hear analog sound, and it's only over the past 25 years that digital has taken over. And it hasn't been very pretty. The only … Read more

In the digital world, the money is in analog

Glyn Moody is talking about something completely different (people in the digital age still happily paying for vinyl records), but his point is actually directly appropriate for open-source software business models. One way to make money in the recording business is through vinyl records. Analog, in other words, not digital.

This is actually the way Red Hat, MySQL, JBoss, Alfresco, and other open-source companies make money. Analog. People. Real services performed by real people.

The digital bits are easy. Hard to create, yes, but easy to copy, so why bother locking them down? The people behind the bits? Not so … Read more

Best Buy TVs now all digital

It's a lot harder to find an analog television at Best Buy these days. That's because as of the beginning of October, Best Buy stopped selling them, according to an Associated Press report. The largest consumer electronics chain in the U.S. will now only sell televisions with digital tuners.

It's not a huge surprise. The government-imposed digital television mandate is fast approaching. By Feb. 18, 2009, TV broadcasters will be required to broadcast only digital signals, and TVs with only analog tuners will be unable to pick up the new broadcasts. As part of the gradual … Read more

TV rabbit ears to go digital for the elderly

The digital age is about to invade your elderly parents' or grandparents' living room. But do they know it?

The pending changes to free over-the-air TV for analog TV owners has gotten the attention on the Hill. The Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing Wednesday morning to discuss the topic.

Come February 2009, seniors who have analog TV sets and rely on rabbit ears to capture free TV programming off the airwaves face a huge problem--no picture.

That's when TV broadcasters will be required to halt analog broadcasting and, instead, transmit their content in digital form. For … Read more

Saitek's Cyborg Rumble game pad lets you flip the stick

Which layout do you prefer on your game pad? Do you like Sony-style, with the left analog stick low and symmetrical with the right analog stick? Or perhaps you prefer Microsoft-style, with the left analog stick high and level with the face buttons. Regardless of your preference, usually that choice is limited to the system you're on or which PC game pad you use.

Saitek has released the Cyborg P3600 Rumble Pad, the first PC game pad we've yet seen that lets you choose between the two layouts on a whim. Instead of a fixed layout, the Cyborg … Read more