Acousto-optical devices which are intended for information transmission and conversion, may process both binary and analog signals. The theory which had been developed earlier for transmission of binary signals, has been expanded to the processing of analog signals. The system of resolving power and frequency bandwidth criteria has been studied in details, proceeding from the need to transmit the necessary amount of gray scale levels with the necessary reliability. It has also been shown that the basic equation of acousto-optics in which number of resolvable spots is determined as time-bandwidth product, must be modified for the case of gray scale transmission. The experimental results illustrating the proposed approach to basic parameters of acousto-optical devices, have been described and discussed.