Behind the Lens

1.8Bits and Bytes: The Bottleneck of Data Rates

In spite of the fact that we’re more than a decade into the digital revolution of high-definition (and beyond) moving images, there is still a very narrow bottleneck that keeps digital shooters from getting everything they want: data. The sheer amount of information that needs to be recorded from today’s high-definition and cinema-definition cameras is staggering, and we—as of yet— don’t have the technology to do so.

In order to understand how data flows and the problems it creates, we need to understand the basics of digital information—so we’ll start with the very building blocks.

Bits and ...