goodness, i can't remember what i read. 1st, i'd just like to say...in response to SLL, you are a spark of crystal on these shores. i have been to all of sony's and others schools for learning data compression systems (NEC,ATT,Panasonic,etc.). and without going to far there, i must say...digital is here to stay, that being said, you must understand, that if its done in the digital domain...it will always have an encoding process. simply put; i hope, this means a quantifying means of 'looking' at an analogue signal and making 'digits' out of it. digital is the means of using 'packets' of information in some usable means to eventualy 'reproduce' ...something that happened in 'real' time. errrr, if one uses ones and zeros to represent ...music or pictures...or god, god bless her, then one is re-representing that entity with ...numbers; and numbers can never ever give us at the end result what was first put in 'there'. MPEG, itself, is a packet of information that uses an incredible amount of error correction, both pre-signal & post-signal...that attempts to presume what happened in the past. true, even a 35mm picture of abe lincoln cannot give you what he really looked like...but it is so close...because it simply catches the 'light' from around him...noise n all. a digi. snap would be oh-so-clean...but it takes into account things that the eye does not see. to many it 'cleans up' the image', to one who was there and saw where he was standing...he/she might say something like...wait a minute...that vase in the background was barely visible...the wart on his chin...was not so pronounced. digital systems are very good at what they do. they elimanate noise, give us good clean vision...or sound. the reality is...when i was at the bar, there was noise, when abe's friend's were at the photo shoot, there was light falloff...his wart could not be seen so clearly. digital is here to stay. my bosses at cnn yell at me because of artifacts and other things that were not present on our analogue transmission systems...but now we get ...10,12,18 signals on a channel that once only could transmit one. ever watched our 'video phone'...what a technical 'joke'. but i can fly into kosovo with one and set it up and give you the news in 18 hours...the analogue system took days...paperwork...30 pieces of heavy equipment. as an old engineer...i hate digital...as a new waver...it is a blessing. go ask neal young. it is a blessing and a curse. i wish i still had my old 2 inchers from my days as a studio engineer...just couldn't put em in my backpack. rock is dead,
long live rock n roll.
i think i lost sight here...so many comparisions, so little time. i do love questions as yours...keeps me young and keeps me alive. as a postscript to sum it up. in the new 'media', analogue is dead. we now (except for the studio/mastering people) have to live with the'new age'...and the new age media is...digital...digital is numbers. i would now like to refer you to the writings of Langstrom and Niels Borr.
after that, go see a live play and watch a good live band at your local dark horse saloon.
ok, one last ps. their is two places that hold out: 1. the reviving analogue music mastering studios
2. FILM! movies just can't get better here. except for content, which is so much better now than when i grew up. let's keep the oldest analogue signal alive. Light (pps.: the grandfather of film went blind in the 1900's...looking at..the sun)