Term of the Week – PCM

About.com's Home Theater section has their term of the week up again. This week they talk about PCM or Pulse Code Modulation. PCM is the method in which audio signals are transferred to digital audio data. The data is then transmitted via digital or optical S/PDIF.

From the article:

PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation. PCM technology is a means by which standard audio signals (which are represented by waveforms) are converted to digital audio signals (which are represented by 1's and 0's – much like computer data). The method of audio conversion is used on most digital audio formats, including CDs and DVD-Audio, and is also used to some extent in Blu-ray and HD-DVD applications.