The amount of information that can be passed in a given time. In television a large bandwidth is needed to show sharp picture detail in real-time, and so is a factor in the quality of recorded or transmitted images. For example, ITU-R BT.601 and SMPTE RP 125 allow analogue luminance bandwidth of 5.5 MHz and chrominance bandwidth of 2.75 MHz for standard definition video. 1080-line HD has a luminance bandwidth of 30 MHz (ITU-R BT.709).

Digital image systems generally require large bandwidths hence the reason why many storage and transmission systems revert to compression techniques to accommodate the signal.