digitize

(Didg-it-ize) :verb: To convert from analogue format to digital format. Common digitizers include drawing tablets, and digital recorders (including digital cameras and camcorders as well as pure audio recorders and scanners.) Since anything in the real world is analogue, digitizing refers to storing this data as binary numbers. Any method which records something and saves it onto a computer is a digitizing method. There is no implication of altering the content within a digitizing process except where technology limits the recording. For example, a picture taken with a digital camera will not be of the same resolution as reality, but rather as close an approximation as the technology allows. Just as digitizing an old record will usually drop the very top and bottom ranges of the sound. Digitizing is always a lossy conversion because an exact approximation is not possible with such a limited amount of space for the huge amount of data analogue methods hold. Once an item is digitized, it will never lose quality on re-recordings or play back because of the method of storage. With high-quality digitizers, the difference between the original analogue source and the digital recording is not percievable by human senses.