Electronic data in their original form. Baseband refers to analog or digital data before being intermixed with other data. See
multiplexing and
modulation.
For Example
The output of an analog microphone is baseband. When an FM station's carrier frequency is stripped away in the radio (demodulated), the original audio signal that you hear is the baseband signal. See
frequency modulation.
Ethernet transmission is considered baseband, because signals are not intermixed and occupy the full bandwidth of the line. In fact, "base" is part of the Ethernet version name (see
10Base-T and
100Base-T).
When a compressed digital audio signal such as MP3 is transcoded to another format, it is decompressed back to the original bit rate (the baseband signal) before it is compressed into the new format (for a specific example, see
aptX). See
baseband processor.
Baseband Video
In this cable TV set-top box manual, "baseband video" refers to the composite video signal from an analog VCR or camcorder, which comprises only video frames not intermixed with the audio. See
composite video and
carrier frequency.