NICE AND EASY: What is baseband video?

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Another term that shouldn’t have you shaking your head. Nice and simple… baseband video is plain old video or audio over a wire. Think of composite video cables, or even HDMI. It’s a signal that isn’t modulated onto a channel, isn’t put out over the internet, just the basic signal that comes from your satellite box or media player and goes to your TV. That.

In case you’re curious, modulated video refers to one cable that distributes lots of channels, like an antenna signal. It has to be demodulated and that turns it into baseband video. Broadband video is video that is delivered over the internet in digital chunks and coexists with everything else out there. You know, like Netflix. Broadband video has to be decoded and then it turns into baseband video.

So, you could say baseband video is the simplest form of video there is. Everything else… isn’t nice and easy.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.