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Digital AV technology

This is a course overview and glossary for "Digitale AV Technik". Created in September 2024 by Prof. Uwe Hahne

Course plan (Summer 2025)

See German pages:

Aus dem Wintersemester 2024/25:

Basic outline

The following topics will be included:

Theory

Connections

Practice

  • Where is audio and video used?
  • What are audio and video sources?
  • How is audio and video transferred?
  • Which devices are used to playback audio and video?
  • What is a digital signal processors and where it is used?

Learning goals

After the course the following questions should be answerable by all participants:

  • Why is an Audio-CD sampled with 44.1 kHz?
  • Why is 48 kHz used in professional video equipment?
  • What does it mean to use 16 bit for samples?
  • What is pulse-code modulation?
  • Why is Netflix using the AV1 codec?

Potential homework questions

  1. How is digital AV technology used in a concert hall to improve the audience experience? Research current tools and focus on the aspect of digitization. How can the digitized transmission of audio signals in a concert hall affect the quality of the audience experience? Where does analog-to-digital conversion take place? What are the advantages and disadvantages of digitization at these (editing) points?
  2. How is digital AV technology used in television studios during a live broadcast? Which signals and data play a role? Which signals are analogue and are they digitized? Which aspects are most important in a live broadcast? What are OB vans for and what technology do they contain?
  3. What is digital television? Since when has television been digital or is there still analog television? What is linear television and what does it have to do with digital?
  4. What is digital radio? Since when has radio been digital or is there still analog radio? What is the conceptual difference between radio and podcasts? What are the technological differences?
  5. What about the telephone network? Is it digital? How does the digitization of the telephone network work? How did the analog telephone network become an infrastructure for the Internet?
  6. How does audio streaming work on the internet? What is the difference between streaming on Spotify, Amazon or others and a podcast?
  7. How does video streaming work on the internet? What is the difference between streaming on YouTube, Netflix, TikTok or Twitch?
  8. How are data and signals physically transmitted? What role do cables and plugs play?
  9. How does wireless data and signal transmission work? What methods are there and how do they differ? How does mobile radio differ from digital television (DVB-T or -S)? What is the difference to WLAN or Bluetooth?
  10. How much digital signal processing is in a modern smartphone? What does system-on-chip mean? How does Apple solve the signal processing on its A series chips that are built into iPhones? What does it look like in other smartphones?