The process of changing an electronic signal that is an analogy (analog) of a physical process such as vision or hearing into a discrete numerical form. Digitization is subdivided into the processes of sampling the analog signal at a moment in time, quantizing the sample (assigning it a numerical level), and coding the number in binary form. The advantages of digitization include improved transmission; the disadvantages include a higher bit rate than the analog bandwidth. Bit rate reduction schemes work to reduce that disadvantage.