Quantization (signal processing) |
In digital signal processing,
quantization is the process of approximating a continuous signal by a set of discrete symbols or integer values;
that is, converting an analog signal to a digital one. In general, a quantization operator can be represented as
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where x is a real number, Q(x) an integer, and f(x) is an arbitrary real-valued
function that controls the "quantization law" of the particular coder.
For example, in digital telephony, two popular quantization schemes are the
'A-law' and 'µ-law', each mapping an analog signal to an integer value represented by an 8-bit binary number, but each with a different function f.
See also:
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