Analog recording

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Analog (or analogue) recording is a technique used to store audio or video signals for later playback. The first successful demonstration of analog recording for audio was by Thomas Alva Edison. The first analogs of moving pictures were those of the Lumiere Brothers.

The modern examples of the analog audio recording are:

Gramophone record (aka phonograph record, vinyl, etc).
Wire recording
Magnetic tape, magnetic tape sound recording

The earliest forms of video recording used analog technology initially. John Logie Baird developed a system in the 1920s for the storage of video signals on conventional phonograph records, which he called Phonovision. In the 1930s, he further developed the Intermediate Film Technique, which provided for an analog method of temporary video storage by using cine film.

The analog recording method stores signals as a continual wave in/on the media, rather than the discrete numbers used in digital recording. The wave is stored as a physical texture on a phonograph record, or a fluctuation in the field strength of a magnetic recording.

A perceived drawback of many analog recordings was noise of the media, or of the equipment, and of production equipment limitations. Repeat playing of a gramophone record introduces wear that made the original recording more difficult to hear over the noise level. Careful removal of dirt is helpful; as is careful handling.