Arduino Uno Serial Monitor (for MH sensor series)

gcjr:
what is an MH sensor? is it an encoder with 2 optical outputs?

i don't understand why you read one input as analog and the other as digital

Please see pic below. should i just ignore the analog input and just focus on digital? since i only want to see the rising edge to determine if the encoder is turned and then do counter++?
But i am still having issues since digital value is not changing..