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128-408: In NTSC , its frequency is exactly 315/88 = 3.579 54   MHz with a phase of 180°. PAL uses a frequency of exactly 4.43361875 MHz, with its phase alternating between 135° and 225° from line to line. Since the colorburst signal has a known amplitude, it is sometimes used as a reference level when compensating for amplitude variations in the overall signal. SECAM is unique in not having

256-480: A 405-line field-sequential color television standard in October 1950, which was developed by CBS . The CBS system was incompatible with existing black-and-white receivers. It used a rotating color wheel, reduced the number of scan lines from 525 to 405, and increased the field rate from 60 to 144, but had an effective frame rate of only 24 frames per second. Legal action by rival RCA kept commercial use of

384-448: A comb filter .) To provide sufficient bandwidth for the chrominance signal, yet interfere only with the highest-frequency (and thus least perceptible) portions of the luminance signal, a chrominance subcarrier near 3.6 MHz was desirable. 227.5 = 455/2 times the line rate was close to the right number, and 455's small factors (5 × 7 × 13) make a divider easy to construct. However, additional interference could come from

512-414: A digital television (DTV) signal remains good until the signal level drops below a threshold where reception is no longer possible or becomes intermittent. Analog television may be wireless ( terrestrial television and satellite television ) or can be distributed over a cable network as cable television . All broadcast television systems used analog signals before the arrival of DTV. Motivated by

640-440: A frame rate of 30 frames (images) per second, consisting of two interlaced fields per frame at 262.5 lines per field and 60 fields per second. Other standards in the final recommendation were an aspect ratio of 4:3, and frequency modulation (FM) for the sound signal (which was quite new at the time). In January 1950, the committee was reconstituted to standardize color television . The FCC had briefly approved

768-407: A 4.5 MHz carrier spacing and a 15750 Hz line rate, did not meet this requirement: the audio was 285.714 times the line rate. While existing black and white receivers could not decode a signal with a different audio carrier frequency, they could easily use the copious timing information in the video signal to decode a slightly slower line rate. Thus, the new color television standard reduced

896-537: A color subcarrier of precisely 315/88 MHz (usually described as 3.579545 MHz±10 Hz). The precise frequency was chosen so that horizontal line-rate modulation components of the chrominance signal fall exactly in between the horizontal line-rate modulation components of the luminance signal, such that the chrominance signal could easily be filtered out of the luminance signal on new television sets, and that it would be minimally visible in existing televisions. Due to limitations of frequency divider circuits at

1024-457: A color image. When a transmitter broadcasts an NTSC signal, it amplitude-modulates a radio-frequency carrier with the NTSC signal just described, while it frequency-modulates a carrier 4.5 MHz higher with the audio signal. If non-linear distortion happens to the broadcast signal, the 3.579545 MHz color carrier may beat with the sound carrier to produce a dot pattern on the screen. To make

1152-413: A colorburst signal, since the chrominance signals are encoded using FM rather than QAM , thus the signal phase is immaterial and no reference point is needed. The original black and white NTSC television standard specified a frame rate of 30 Hz and 525 lines per frame, or 15750 lines per second. The audio was frequency modulated 4.5 MHz above the video signal. Because this was black and white,

1280-528: A consequence, the ATSC digital television standard states that for 480i signals, SMPTE C colorimetry should be assumed unless colorimetric data is included in the transport stream. Japanese NTSC never changed primaries and whitepoint to SMPTE C, continuing to use the 1953 NTSC primaries and whitepoint. Both the PAL and SECAM systems used the original 1953 NTSC colorimetry as well until 1970; unlike NTSC, however,

1408-421: A digital shorthand to System M. The so-called NTSC-Film standard has a digital standard resolution of 720 × 480 pixel for DVD-Videos , 480 × 480 pixel for Super Video CDs (SVCD, Aspect Ratio: 4:3) and 352 × 240 pixel for Video CDs (VCD). The digital video (DV) camcorder format that is equivalent to NTSC is 720 × 480 pixels. The digital television (DTV) equivalent

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1536-472: A gear, rather than smooth and uniform. RCA discovered that if the chrominance (color) information, which had a similar spectrum, was modulated on a carrier that was a half-integer multiple of the line rate, its signal peaks would fit neatly between the peaks of the luminance data and interference was minimized. It was not eliminated, but what remained was not readily apparent to human eyes. (Modern televisions attempt to reduce this interference further using

1664-627: A given bandwidth. This is because sophisticated comb filters in receivers are more effective with NTSC's 4 color frame sequence compared to PAL's 8-field sequence. However, in the end, the larger channel width of most PAL systems in Europe still gives PAL systems the edge in transmitting more picture detail. In the SECAM television system, U and V are transmitted on alternate lines, using simple frequency modulation of two different color subcarriers. In some analog color CRT displays, starting in 1956,

1792-527: A given signal completely, it is necessary to quote the color system plus the broadcast standard as a capital letter. For example, the United States, Canada, Mexico and South Korea used (or use) NTSC-M , Japan used NTSC-J , the UK used PAL-I , France used SECAM-L , much of Western Europe and Australia used (or use) PAL-B / G , most of Eastern Europe uses SECAM-D / K or PAL-D/K and so on. Not all of

1920-430: A higher vertical resolution, but a lower temporal resolution of 25 frames or 50 fields per second. The NTSC field refresh frequency in the black-and-white system originally exactly matched the nominal 60 Hz frequency of alternating current power used in the United States. Matching the field refresh rate to the power source avoided intermodulation (also called beating ), which produces rolling bars on

2048-503: A means of television channel selection. Analog broadcast television systems come in a variety of frame rates and resolutions. Further differences exist in the frequency and modulation of the audio carrier. The monochrome combinations still existing in the 1950s were standardized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as capital letters A through N. When color television was introduced,

2176-480: A minimum of eight cycles of the unmodulated (pure original) color subcarrier. The TV receiver has a local oscillator, which is synchronized with these color bursts to create a reference signal. Combining this reference phase signal with the chrominance signal allows the recovery of the I ′ {\displaystyle I^{\prime }} and Q ′ {\displaystyle Q^{\prime }} signals, which in conjunction with

2304-399: A number of different broadcast television systems are in use worldwide, the same principles of operation apply. A cathode-ray tube (CRT) television displays an image by scanning a beam of electrons across the screen in a pattern of horizontal lines known as a raster . At the end of each line, the beam returns to the start of the next line; at the end of the last line, the beam returns to

2432-428: A process called QAM . The I ′ Q ′ {\displaystyle I^{\prime }Q^{\prime }} color space is rotated relative to the difference signal color space, such that orange-blue color information (which the human eye is most sensitive to) is transmitted on the I ′ {\displaystyle I^{\prime }} signal at 1.3 MHz bandwidth, while

2560-465: A program using the NTSC "compatible color" system was an episode of NBC's Kukla, Fran and Ollie on August 30, 1953, although it was viewable in color only at the network's headquarters. The first nationwide viewing of NTSC color came on the following January 1 with the coast-to-coast broadcast of the Tournament of Roses Parade , viewable on prototype color receivers at special presentations across

2688-399: A second demodulator, the Z demodulator, also extracts an additive combination of U plus V, but in a different ratio. The X and Z color difference signals are further matrixed into three color difference signals, (R-Y), (B-Y), and (G-Y). The combinations of usually two, but sometimes three demodulators were: In the end, further matrixing of the above color-difference signals c through f yielded

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2816-462: A signal would not be compatible with monochrome receivers, an important consideration when color broadcasting was first introduced. It would also occupy three times the bandwidth of existing television, requiring a decrease in the number of television channels available. Instead, the RGB signals are converted into YUV form, where the Y signal represents the luminance of the colors in the image. Because

2944-410: A television image is composed of scan lines drawn on the screen. The lines are of varying brightness; the whole set of lines is drawn quickly enough that the human eye perceives it as one image. The process repeats and the next sequential frame is displayed, allowing the depiction of motion. The analog television signal contains timing and synchronization information so that the receiver can reconstruct

3072-438: A two-dimensional moving image from a one-dimensional time-varying signal. The first commercial television systems were black-and-white ; the beginning of color television was in the 1950s. A practical television system needs to take luminance , chrominance (in a color system), synchronization (horizontal and vertical), and audio signals , and broadcast them over a radio transmission. The transmission system must include

3200-480: A volt. At this point the IF signal consists of a video carrier signal at one frequency and the sound carrier at a fixed offset in frequency. A demodulator recovers the video signal. Also at the output of the same demodulator is a new frequency modulated sound carrier at the offset frequency. In some sets made before 1948, this was filtered out, and the sound IF of about 22 MHz was sent to an FM demodulator to recover

3328-475: A wideband receiver. The main audio carrier is 4.5 MHz above the video carrier, making it 250 kHz below the top of the channel. Sometimes a channel may contain an MTS signal, which offers more than one audio signal by adding one or two subcarriers on the audio signal, each synchronized to a multiple of the line frequency. This is normally the case when stereo audio and/or second audio program signals are used. The same extensions are used in ATSC , where

3456-457: Is Sound-in-Syncs . The luminance component of a composite video signal varies between 0 V and approximately 0.7 V above the black level. In the NTSC system, there is a blanking signal level used during the front porch and back porch, and a black signal level 75 mV above it; in PAL and SECAM these are identical. In a monochrome receiver, the luminance signal is amplified to drive

3584-488: Is 3.579545 MHz above the video carrier, and is quadrature-amplitude-modulated with a suppressed carrier. The audio signal is frequency-modulated , like the audio signals broadcast by FM radio stations in the 88–108 MHz band, but with a 25 kHz maximum frequency deviation , as opposed to 75 kHz as is used on the FM band , making analog television audio signals sound quieter than FM radio signals as received on

3712-531: Is 704 × 480 pixels. The National Television System Committee was established in 1940 by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to resolve the conflicts between companies over the introduction of a nationwide analog television system in the United States. In March 1941, the committee issued a technical standard for black-and-white television that built upon a 1936 recommendation made by

3840-411: Is a brief (about 1.5 microsecond ) period inserted between the end of each transmitted line of picture and the leading edge of the next line's sync pulse . Its purpose was to allow voltage levels to stabilise in older televisions, preventing interference between picture lines. The front porch is the first component of the horizontal blanking interval which also contains the horizontal sync pulse and

3968-401: Is added to the composite baseband signal (video plus audio and data subcarriers) before modulation. This limits the satellite downlink power spectral density in case the video signal is lost. Otherwise the satellite might transmit all of its power on a single frequency, interfering with terrestrial microwave links in the same frequency band. In half transponder mode, the frequency deviation of

Colorburst - Misplaced Pages Continue

4096-411: Is also how FM radio circuits came to use a nominally 10.7 MHz intermediate frequency in superheterodyne conversion. NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee ) is the first American standard for analog television , published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M . It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second NTSC standard

4224-411: Is composed of two fields, each consisting of 262.5 scan lines, for a total of 525 scan lines. The visible raster is made up of 486 scan lines. The later digital standard, Rec. 601 , only uses 480 of these lines for visible raster. The remainder (the vertical blanking interval ) allow for vertical synchronization and retrace. This blanking interval was originally designed to simply blank

4352-418: Is designed to excite only the corresponding red, green, or blue phosphor dots. TV sets with digital circuitry use sampling techniques to process the signals but the result is the same. For both analog and digital sets processing an analog NTSC signal, the original three color signals are transmitted using three discrete signals (Y, I and Q) and then recovered as three separate colors (R, G, and B) and presented as

4480-701: Is duplicated and then the resulting stream is interlaced. Film shot for NTSC television at 24 frames per second has traditionally been accelerated by 1/24 (to about 104.17% of normal speed) for transmission in regions that use 25-fps television standards. This increase in picture speed has traditionally been accompanied by a similar increase in the pitch and tempo of the audio. More recently, frame-blending has been used to convert 24 FPS video to 25 FPS without altering its speed. Film shot for television in regions that use 25-fps television standards can be handled in either of two ways: Because both film speeds have been used in 25-fps regions, viewers can face confusion about

4608-506: Is easier to tune the picture without losing the sound. So the FM sound carrier is then demodulated, amplified, and used to drive a loudspeaker. Until the advent of the NICAM and MTS systems, television sound transmissions were monophonic. The video carrier is demodulated to give a composite video signal containing luminance, chrominance and synchronization signals. The result is identical to

4736-443: Is severely limited, analog video transmission through satellites differs from terrestrial TV transmission. AM is a linear modulation method, so a given demodulated signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requires an equally high received RF SNR. The SNR of studio quality video is over 50 dB, so AM would require prohibitively high powers and/or large antennas. Wideband FM is used instead to trade RF bandwidth for reduced power. Increasing

4864-468: Is that the U and V signals are zero when the picture has no color content. Since the human eye is more sensitive to detail in luminance than in color, the U and V signals can be transmitted with reduced bandwidth with acceptable results. In the receiver, a single demodulator can extract an additive combination of U plus V. An example is the X demodulator used in the X/Z demodulation system. In that same system,

4992-405: Is the difference between the B signal and the Y signal, also known as B minus Y (B-Y), and the V signal is the difference between the R signal and the Y signal, also known as R minus Y (R-Y). The U signal then represents how purplish-blue or its complementary color, yellowish-green, the color is, and the V signal how purplish-red or its complementary, greenish-cyan, it is. The advantage of this scheme

5120-500: Is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude , phase and frequency of an analog signal. Analog signals vary over a continuous range of possible values which means that electronic noise and interference may be introduced. Thus with analog, a moderately weak signal becomes snowy and subject to interference. In contrast, picture quality from

5248-566: Is the same as the original U signal at the corresponding time. In effect, these pulses are discrete-time analog samples of the U signal. The pulses are then low-pass filtered so that the original analog continuous-time U signal is recovered. For V, a 90-degree shifted subcarrier briefly gates the chroma signal every 280 nanoseconds, and the rest of the process is identical to that used for the U signal. Gating at any other time than those times mentioned above will yield an additive mixture of any two of U, V, -U, or -V. One of these off-axis (that is, of

Colorburst - Misplaced Pages Continue

5376-628: Is transmitted for two video fields (lasting 1 video frame). Two film frames are thus transmitted in five video fields, for an average of 2 + 1 ⁄ 2  video fields per film frame. The average frame rate is thus 60 ÷ 2.5 = 24 frames per second, so the average film speed is nominally exactly what it should be. (In reality, over the course of an hour of real time, 215,827.2 video fields are displayed, representing 86,330.88 frames of film, while in an hour of true 24-fps film projection, exactly 86,400 frames are shown: thus, 29.97-fps NTSC transmission of 24-fps film runs at 99.92% of

5504-542: Is transmitted. Therefore, the receiver must reconstitute the subcarrier. For this purpose, a short burst of the subcarrier, known as the colorburst, is transmitted during the back porch (re-trace blanking period) of each scan line. A subcarrier oscillator in the receiver locks onto this signal (see phase-locked loop ) to achieve a phase reference, resulting in the oscillator producing the reconstituted subcarrier. NTSC uses this process unmodified. Unfortunately, this often results in poor color reproduction due to phase errors in

5632-475: Is used to build the image. This process doubles the apparent number of video frames per second and further reduces flicker and other defects in transmission. The television system for each country will specify a number of television channels within the UHF or VHF frequency ranges. A channel actually consists of two signals: the picture information is transmitted using amplitude modulation on one carrier frequency, and

5760-413: Is used to reduce the channel spacing, which would be nearly twice the video bandwidth if pure AM was used. Signal reception is invariably done via a superheterodyne receiver : the first stage is a tuner which selects a television channel and frequency-shifts it to a fixed intermediate frequency (IF). The signal amplifier performs amplification to the IF stages from the microvolt range to fractions of

5888-410: The Q ′ {\displaystyle Q^{\prime }} signal encodes purple-green color information at 0.4 MHz bandwidth; this allows the chrominance signal to use less overall bandwidth without noticeable color degradation. The two signals each amplitude modulate 3.58 MHz carriers which are 90 degrees out of phase with each other and the result added together but with

6016-516: The Y ′ {\displaystyle Y^{\prime }} signal, is reconstructed to the individual R ′ G ′ B ′ {\displaystyle R^{\prime }G^{\prime }B^{\prime }} signals, that are then sent to the CRT to form the image. In CRT televisions, the NTSC signal is turned into three color signals: red, green, and blue, each controlling an electron gun that

6144-657: The Americas and Japan . With the advent of digital television , analog broadcasts were largely phased out. Most US NTSC broadcasters were required by the FCC to shut down their analog transmitters by February 17, 2009, however this was later moved to June 12, 2009. Low-power stations , Class A stations and translators were required to shut down by 2015, although an FCC extension allowed some of those stations operating on Channel 6 to operate until July 13, 2021. The remaining Canadian analog TV transmitters, in markets not subject to

6272-492: The ITU in 1961 as: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, K1, L, M and N. These systems determine the number of scan lines, frame rate, channel width, video bandwidth, video-audio separation, and so on. A color encoding scheme ( NTSC , PAL , or SECAM ) could be added to the base monochrome signal. Using RF modulation the signal is then modulated onto a very high frequency (VHF) or ultra high frequency (UHF) carrier wave . Each frame of

6400-431: The audio signal . To minimize interference there, it was similarly desirable to make the distance between the chrominance carrier frequency and the audio carrier frequency a half-integer multiple of the line rate. The sum of these two half-integers implies that the distance between the frequency of the luminance carrier and audio carrier must be an integer multiple of the line rate. However, the original NTSC standard, with

6528-430: The back porch . The back porch is the portion of each scan line between the end (rising edge) of the horizontal sync pulse and the start of active video. It is used to restore the black level (300 mV) reference in analog video. In signal processing terms, it compensates for the fall time and settling time following the sync pulse. In color television systems such as PAL and NTSC, this period also includes

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6656-497: The carriers themselves being suppressed . The result can be viewed as a single sine wave with varying phase relative to a reference carrier and with varying amplitude. The varying phase represents the instantaneous color hue captured by a TV camera, and the amplitude represents the instantaneous color saturation . The 3.579545 MHz subcarrier is then added to the Luminance to form the composite color signal which modulates

6784-465: The colorburst signal. In the SECAM system, it contains the reference subcarrier for each consecutive color difference signal in order to set the zero-color reference. In some professional systems, particularly satellite links between locations, the digital audio is embedded within the line sync pulses of the video signal, to save the cost of renting a second channel. The name for this proprietary system

6912-534: The control grid in the electron gun of the CRT. This changes the intensity of the electron beam and therefore the brightness of the spot being scanned. Brightness and contrast controls determine the DC shift and amplification, respectively. A color signal conveys picture information for each of the red, green, and blue components of an image. However, these are not simply transmitted as three separate signals, because: such

7040-431: The 1960s to the early 2000s, economies of scale drove down the cost of colorburst crystals, so they were often used in various other applications, such as oscillators for microprocessors or for amateur radio : 3.5795 MHz has since become a common QRP calling frequency in the 80-meter band , and its doubled frequency of 7.159 MHz is a common calling frequency in the 40-meter band . Tripling this frequency

7168-562: The ATSC digital carrier is broadcast at 0.31 MHz above the lower bound of the channel. "Setup" is a 54 mV (7.5  IRE ) voltage offset between the "black" and "blanking" levels. It is unique to NTSC. CVBS stands for Color, Video, Blanking, and Sync. The following table shows the values for the basic RGB colors, encoded in NTSC There is a large difference in frame rate between film, which runs at 24 frames per second, and

7296-902: The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) rejected color correction in receivers and studio monitors that year and instead explicitly called for all equipment to directly encode signals for the "EBU" colorimetric values. In reference to the gamuts shown on the CIE chromaticity diagram (above), the variations between the different colorimetries can result in significant visual differences. To adjust for proper viewing requires gamut mapping via LUTs or additional color grading . SMPTE Recommended Practice RP 167-1995 refers to such an automatic correction as an "NTSC corrective display matrix." For instance, material prepared for 1953 NTSC may look desaturated when displayed on SMPTE C or ATSC/ BT.709 displays, and may also exhibit noticeable hue shifts. On

7424-408: The NTSC and PAL color systems, U and V are transmitted by using quadrature amplitude modulation of a subcarrier. This kind of modulation applies two independent signals to one subcarrier, with the idea that both signals will be recovered independently at the receiving end. For NTSC, the subcarrier is at 3.58 MHz. For the PAL system it is at 4.43 MHz. The subcarrier itself is not included in

7552-481: The NTSC color standard, which was cooperatively developed by several companies, including RCA and Philco. In December 1953, the FCC unanimously approved what is now called the NTSC color television standard (later defined as RS-170a). The compatible color standard retained full backward compatibility with then-existing black-and-white television sets. Color information was added to the black-and-white image by introducing

7680-485: The NTSC standard, as well as those using other analog television standards , have switched to, or are in process of switching to, newer digital television standards, with there being at least four different standards in use around the world. North America, parts of Central America , and South Korea are adopting or have adopted the ATSC standards, while other countries, such as Japan , are adopting or have adopted other standards instead of ATSC. After nearly 70 years,

7808-402: The NTSC standard, which runs at approximately 29.97 (10 MHz×63/88/455/525) frames per second. In regions that use 25-fps television and video standards, this difference can be overcome by speed-up . For 30-fps standards, a process called " 3:2 pulldown " is used. One film frame is transmitted for three video fields (lasting 1 + 1 ⁄ 2  video frames), and the next frame

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7936-411: The NTSC system. PAL's color encoding is similar to the NTSC systems. SECAM, though, uses a different modulation approach than PAL or NTSC. PAL had a late evolution called PALplus , allowing widescreen broadcasts while remaining fully compatible with existing PAL equipment. In principle, all three color encoding systems can be used with any scan line/frame rate combination. Therefore, in order to describe

8064-519: The Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA). Technical advancements of the vestigial side band technique allowed for the opportunity to increase the image resolution. The NTSC selected 525 scan lines as a compromise between RCA 's 441-scan line standard (already being used by RCA's NBC TV network) and Philco 's and DuMont 's desire to increase the number of scan lines to between 605 and 800. The standard recommended

8192-405: The U and V axis) gating methods is called I/Q demodulation. Another much more popular off-axis scheme was the X/Z demodulation system. Further matrixing recovered the original U and V signals. This scheme was actually the most popular demodulator scheme throughout the 1960s. The above process uses the subcarrier. But as previously mentioned, it was deleted before transmission, and only the chroma

8320-407: The Y signal) represents the approximate saturation of a color, and the chrominance phase against the subcarrier reference approximately represents the hue of the color. For particular test colors found in the test color bar pattern, exact amplitudes and phases are sometimes defined for test and troubleshooting purposes only. Due to the nature of the quadrature amplitude modulation process that created

8448-546: The air and through cable, but also in the home-video market, on both tape and disc, including laser disc and DVD . In digital television and video, which are replacing their analog predecessors, single standards that can accommodate a wider range of frame rates still show the limits of analog regional standards. The initial version of the ATSC standard, for example, allowed frame rates of 23.976, 24, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60, 119.88 and 120 frames per second, but not 25 and 50. Modern ATSC allows 25 and 50 FPS. Because satellite power

8576-420: The audio subcarrier frequency or lower the line frequency. Raising the audio subcarrier frequency would prevent existing (black and white) receivers from properly tuning in the audio signal. Lowering the line frequency is comparatively innocuous, because the horizontal and vertical synchronization information in the NTSC signal allows a receiver to tolerate a substantial amount of variation in the line frequency. So

8704-435: The basic sound signal. In newer sets, this new carrier at the offset frequency was allowed to remain as intercarrier sound , and it was sent to an FM demodulator to recover the basic sound signal. One particular advantage of intercarrier sound is that when the front panel fine tuning knob is adjusted, the sound carrier frequency does not change with the tuning, but stays at the above-mentioned offset frequency. Consequently, it

8832-423: The beginning of the first line at the top of the screen. As it passes each point, the intensity of the beam is varied, varying the luminance of that point. A color television system is similar except there are three beams that scan together and an additional signal known as chrominance controls the color of the spot. When analog television was developed, no affordable technology for storing video signals existed;

8960-426: The blue difference signal is B ′ − Y ′ {\displaystyle B^{\prime }-Y^{\prime }} . These difference signals are then used to derive two new color signals known as I ′ {\displaystyle I^{\prime }} (in-phase) and Q ′ {\displaystyle Q^{\prime }} (in quadrature) in

9088-419: The brightness control signal ( luminance ) is fed to the cathode connections of the electron guns, and the color difference signals ( chrominance signals) are fed to the control grids connections. This simple CRT matrix mixing technique was replaced in later solid state designs of signal processing with the original matrixing method used in the 1954 and 1955 color TV receivers. Synchronizing pulses added to

9216-448: The camera shutter from the video signal itself. The actual figure of 525 lines was chosen as a consequence of the limitations of the vacuum-tube-based technologies of the day. In early TV systems, a master voltage-controlled oscillator was run at twice the horizontal line frequency, and this frequency was divided down by the number of lines used (in this case 525) to give the field frequency (60 Hz in this case). This frequency

9344-601: The channel bandwidth from 6 to 36 MHz allows a RF SNR of only 10 dB or less. The wider noise bandwidth reduces this 40 dB power saving by 36 MHz / 6 MHz = 8 dB for a substantial net reduction of 32 dB. Sound is on an FM subcarrier as in terrestrial transmission, but frequencies above 4.5 MHz are used to reduce aural/visual interference. 6.8, 5.8 and 6.2 MHz are commonly used. Stereo can be multiplex, discrete, or matrix and unrelated audio and data signals may be placed on additional subcarriers. A triangular 60 Hz energy dispersal waveform

9472-578: The chrominance information was added to the monochrome signals in a way that black and white televisions ignore. In this way backward compatibility was achieved. There are three standards for the way the additional color information can be encoded and transmitted. The first was the American NTSC system. The European and Australian PAL and the French and former Soviet Union SECAM standards were developed later and attempt to cure certain defects of

9600-436: The chrominance signal, at certain times, the signal represents only the U signal, and 70 nanoseconds (NTSC) later, it represents only the V signal. About 70 nanoseconds later still, -U, and another 70 nanoseconds, -V. So to extract U, a synchronous demodulator is utilized, which uses the subcarrier to briefly gate the chroma every 280 nanoseconds, so that the output is only a train of discrete pulses, each having an amplitude that

9728-525: The chrominance signal. (Another way this is often stated is that the color subcarrier frequency is an odd multiple of half the line frequency.) They then chose to make the audio subcarrier frequency an integer multiple of the line frequency to minimize visible (intermodulation) interference between the audio signal and the chrominance signal. The original black-and-white standard, with its 15,750 Hz line frequency and 4.5 MHz audio subcarrier, does not meet these requirements, so designers had to either raise

9856-425: The combining process, the low-resolution portion of the Y signals cancel out, leaving R, G, and B signals able to render a low-resolution image in full color. However, the higher resolution portions of the Y signals do not cancel out, and so are equally present in R, G, and B, producing the higher-resolution image detail in monochrome, although it appears to the human eye as a full-color and full-resolution picture. In

9984-477: The composite baseband signal is reduced to 18 MHz to allow another signal in the other half of the 36 MHz transponder. This reduces the FM benefit somewhat, and the recovered SNRs are further reduced because the combined signal power must be "backed off" to avoid intermodulation distortion in the satellite transponder. A single FM signal is constant amplitude, so it can saturate a transponder without distortion. Analog television Analog television

10112-486: The composite video format used by analog video devices such as VCRs or CCTV cameras . To ensure good linearity and thus fidelity, consistent with affordable manufacturing costs of transmitters and receivers, the video carrier is never modulated to the extent that it is shut off altogether. When intercarrier sound was introduced later in 1948, not completely shutting off the carrier had the side effect of allowing intercarrier sound to be economically implemented. Each line of

10240-571: The country. The first color NTSC television camera was the RCA TK-40 , used for experimental broadcasts in 1953; an improved version, the TK-40A, introduced in March 1954, was the first commercially available color television camera. Later that year, the improved TK-41 became the standard camera used throughout much of the 1960s. The NTSC standard has been adopted by other countries, including some in

10368-634: The development of the cathode-ray tube (CRT), which uses a focused electron beam to trace lines across a phosphor coated surface. The electron beam could be swept across the screen much faster than any mechanical disc system, allowing for more closely spaced scan lines and much higher image resolution. Also, far less maintenance was required of an all-electronic system compared to a mechanical spinning disc system. All-electronic systems became popular with households after World War II . Broadcasters of analog television encode their signal using different systems. The official systems of transmission were defined by

10496-503: The disc to scan an image. A similar disk reconstructed the image at the receiver. Synchronization of the receiver disc rotation was handled through sync pulses broadcast with the image information. Camera systems used similar spinning discs and required intensely bright illumination of the subject for the light detector to work. The reproduced images from these mechanical systems were dim, very low resolution and flickered severely. Analog television did not begin in earnest as an industry until

10624-480: The display, etc. Over its history, NTSC color had two distinctly defined colorimetries, shown on the accompanying chromaticity diagram as NTSC 1953 and SMPTE C. Manufacturers introduced a number of variations for technical, economic, marketing, and other reasons. The original 1953 color NTSC specification, still part of the United States Code of Federal Regulations , defined the colorimetric values of

10752-417: The displayed image is transmitted using a signal as shown above. The same basic format (with minor differences mainly related to timing and the encoding of color) is used for PAL, NTSC , and SECAM television systems. A monochrome signal is identical to a color one, with the exception that the elements shown in color in the diagram (the colorburst , and the chrominance signal) are not present. The front porch

10880-475: The early 1990s. The NTSC/System M standard was used in most of the Americas (except Argentina , Brazil , Paraguay , and Uruguay ), Myanmar , South Korea , Taiwan , Philippines , Japan , and some Pacific Islands nations and territories (see map). Since the introduction of digital sources (ex: DVD) the term NTSC has been used to refer to digital formats with number of active lines between 480 and 487 having 30 or 29.97 frames per second rate, serving as

11008-462: The early B&W sets did not do this and chrominance could be seen as a crawling dot pattern in areas of the picture that held saturated colors. To derive the separate signals containing only color information, the difference is determined between each color primary and the summed luma. Thus the red difference signal is R ′ − Y ′ {\displaystyle R^{\prime }-Y^{\prime }} and

11136-405: The electron beam of the receiver's CRT to allow for the simple analog circuits and slow vertical retrace of early TV receivers. However, some of these lines may now contain other data such as closed captioning and vertical interval timecode (VITC). In the complete raster (disregarding half lines due to interlacing ) the even-numbered scan lines (every other line that would be even if counted in

11264-476: The end of 2016. Digital broadcasting allows higher-resolution television , but digital standard definition television continues to use the frame rate and number of lines of resolution established by the analog NTSC standard. NTSC color encoding is used with the System M television signal, which consists of 30 ⁄ 1.001  (approximately 29.97)  interlaced frames of video per second . Each frame

11392-417: The engineers chose the line frequency to be changed for the color standard. In the black-and-white standard, the ratio of audio subcarrier frequency to line frequency is 4.5 MHz ⁄ 15,750 Hz  = 285.71. In the color standard, this becomes rounded to the integer 286, which means the color standard's line rate is 4.5 MHz ⁄ 286  ≈ 15,734 Hz. Maintaining

11520-549: The film's normal speed.) Still-framing on playback can display a video frame with fields from two different film frames, so any difference between the frames will appear as a rapid back-and-forth flicker. There can also be noticeable jitter/"stutter" during slow camera pans ( telecine judder ). Film shot specifically for NTSC television is usually taken at 30 (instead of 24) frames per second to avoid 3:2 pulldown. To show 25-fps material (such as European television series and some European movies) on NTSC equipment, every fifth frame

11648-429: The line rate by a factor of 1.001 to 1/286 of the 4.5 MHz audio subcarrier frequency, or about 15734.2657 Hz. This reduced the frame rate to 30/1.001 ≈ 29.9700 Hz, and placed the color subcarrier at 227.5/286 = 455/572 = 35/44 of the 4.5 MHz audio subcarrier. An NTSC or PAL television's color decoder contains a colorburst crystal oscillator . Because so many analog color TVs were produced from

11776-579: The lower bandwidth requirements of compressed digital signals , beginning just after the year 2000, a digital television transition is proceeding in most countries of the world, with different deadlines for the cessation of analog broadcasts. Several countries have made the switch already, with the remaining countries still in progress mostly in Africa, Asia, and South America. The earliest systems of analog television were mechanical television systems that used spinning disks with patterns of holes punched into

11904-427: The lower bound of the channel. The video carrier is 1.25 MHz above the lower bound of the channel. Like most AM signals, the video carrier generates two sidebands , one above the carrier and one below. The sidebands are each 4.2 MHz wide. The entire upper sideband is transmitted, but only 1.25 MHz of the lower sideband, known as a vestigial sideband , is transmitted. The color subcarrier, as noted above,

12032-401: The luminance signal had to be generated and transmitted at the same time at which it is displayed on the CRT. It was therefore essential to keep the raster scanning in the camera (or other device for producing the signal) in exact synchronization with the scanning in the television. The physics of the CRT require that a finite time interval be allowed for the spot to move back to the start of

12160-721: The majority of over-the-air NTSC transmissions in the United States ceased on June 12, 2009, and by August 31, 2011, in Canada and most other NTSC markets. The majority of NTSC transmissions ended in Japan on July 24, 2011, with the Japanese prefectures of Iwate , Miyagi , and Fukushima ending the next year. After a pilot program in 2013, most full-power analog stations in Mexico left the air on ten dates in 2015, with some 500 low-power and repeater stations allowed to remain in analog until

12288-466: The mandatory transition in 2011, were scheduled to be shut down by January 14, 2022, under a schedule published by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada in 2017; however the scheduled transition dates have already passed for several stations listed that continue to broadcast in analog (e.g. CFJC-TV Kamloops, which has not yet transitioned to digital, is listed as having been required to transition by November 20, 2020). Most countries using

12416-435: The modulated signal ( suppressed carrier ), it is the subcarrier sidebands that carry the U and V information. The usual reason for using suppressed carrier is that it saves on transmitter power. In this application a more important advantage is that the color signal disappears entirely in black and white scenes. The subcarrier is within the bandwidth of the main luminance signal and consequently can cause undesirable artifacts on

12544-410: The negative side-effect of causing image smearing and blurring when there is rapid on-screen motion occurring. The maximum frame rate depends on the bandwidth of the electronics and the transmission system, and the number of horizontal scan lines in the image. A frame rate of 25 or 30 hertz is a satisfactory compromise, while the process of interlacing two video fields of the picture per frame

12672-451: The next line ( horizontal retrace ) or the start of the screen ( vertical retrace ). The timing of the luminance signal must allow for this. The human eye has a characteristic called phi phenomenon . Quickly displaying successive scan images creates the illusion of smooth motion. Flickering of the image can be partially solved using a long persistence phosphor coating on the CRT so that successive images fade slowly. However, slow phosphor has

12800-559: The nonlinear gamma corrected signals transmitted, the adjustment can only be approximated, introducing both hue and luminance errors for highly saturated colors. Similarly at the broadcaster stage, in 1968–69 the Conrac Corp., working with RCA, defined a set of controlled phosphors for use in broadcast color picture video monitors . This specification survives today as the SMPTE C phosphor specification: As with home receivers, it

12928-515: The only practical method of frequency division was the use of a chain of vacuum tube multivibrators , the overall division ratio being the mathematical product of the division ratios of the chain. Since all the factors of an odd number also have to be odd numbers, it follows that all the dividers in the chain also had to divide by odd numbers, and these had to be relatively small due to the problems of thermal drift with vacuum tube devices. The closest practical sequence to 500 that meets these criteria

13056-419: The original black-and-white system; when color was added to the system, however, the refresh frequency was shifted slightly downward by 0.1%, to approximately 59.94 Hz, to eliminate stationary dot patterns in the difference frequency between the sound and color carriers (as explained below in §   Color encoding ). By the time the frame rate changed to accommodate color, it was nearly as easy to trigger

13184-426: The other hand, SMPTE C materials may appear slightly more saturated on BT.709/sRGB displays, or significantly more saturated on P3 displays, if the appropriate gamut mapping is not performed. NTSC uses a luminance - chrominance encoding system, incorporating concepts invented in 1938 by Georges Valensi . Using a separate luminance signal maintained backward compatibility with black-and-white television sets in use at

13312-452: The phase of the signal on each successive line, and averaging the results over pairs of lines. This process is achieved by the use of a 1H (where H = horizontal scan frequency) duration delay line. Phase shift errors between successive lines are therefore canceled out and the wanted signal amplitude is increased when the two in-phase ( coincident ) signals are re-combined. NTSC is more spectrum efficient than PAL, giving more picture detail for

13440-488: The picture, all the more noticeable in black and white receivers. A small sample of the subcarrier, the colorburst , is included in the horizontal blanking portion, which is not visible on the screen. This is necessary to give the receiver a phase reference for the modulated signal. Under quadrature amplitude modulation the modulated chrominance signal changes phase as compared to its subcarrier and also changes amplitude. The chrominance amplitude (when considered together with

13568-407: The place of the original monochrome signal . The color difference information is encoded into the chrominance signal, which carries only the color information. This allows black-and-white receivers to display NTSC color signals by simply ignoring the chrominance signal. Some black-and-white TVs sold in the U.S. after the introduction of color broadcasting in 1953 were designed to filter chroma out, but

13696-739: The possible combinations exist. NTSC is only used with system M, even though there were experiments with NTSC-A ( 405 line ) in the UK and NTSC-N (625 line) in part of South America. PAL is used with a variety of 625-line standards (B, G, D, K, I, N) but also with the North American 525-line standard, accordingly named PAL-M . Likewise, SECAM is used with a variety of 625-line standards. For this reason, many people refer to any 625/25 type signal as PAL and to any 525/30 signal as NTSC , even when referring to digital signals; for example, on DVD-Video , which does not contain any analog color encoding, and thus no PAL or NTSC signals at all. Although

13824-468: The received signal, caused sometimes by multipath, but mostly by poor implementation at the studio end. With the advent of solid-state receivers, cable TV, and digital studio equipment for conversion to an over-the-air analog signal, these NTSC problems have been largely fixed, leaving operator error at the studio end as the sole color rendition weakness of the NTSC system. In any case, the PAL D (delay) system mostly corrects these kinds of errors by reversing

13952-432: The rendering of colors in this way is the goal of both monochrome film and television systems, the Y signal is ideal for transmission as the luminance signal. This ensures a monochrome receiver will display a correct picture in black and white, where a given color is reproduced by a shade of gray that correctly reflects how light or dark the original color is. The U and V signals are color difference signals. The U signal

14080-400: The resulting pattern less noticeable, designers adjusted the original 15,750 Hz scanline rate down by a factor of 1.001 (0.1%) to match the audio carrier frequency divided by the factor 286, resulting in a field rate of approximately 59.94 Hz. This adjustment ensures that the difference between the sound carrier and the color subcarrier (the most problematic intermodulation product of

14208-441: The same number of scan lines per field (and frame), the lower line rate must yield a lower field rate. Dividing 4500000 ⁄ 286 lines per second by 262.5 lines per field gives approximately 59.94 fields per second. An NTSC television channel as transmitted occupies a total bandwidth of 6 MHz. The actual video signal, which is amplitude-modulated , is transmitted between 500  kHz and 5.45 MHz above

14336-415: The screen. Synchronization of the refresh rate to the power incidentally helped kinescope cameras record early live television broadcasts, as it was very simple to synchronize a film camera to capture one frame of video on each film frame by using the alternating current frequency to set the speed of the synchronous AC motor-drive camera. This, as mentioned, is how the NTSC field refresh frequency worked in

14464-415: The sound is transmitted with frequency modulation at a frequency at a fixed offset (typically 4.5 to 6 MHz) from the picture signal. The channel frequencies chosen represent a compromise between allowing enough bandwidth for video (and hence satisfactory picture resolution), and allowing enough channels to be packed into the available frequency band. In practice a technique called vestigial sideband

14592-436: The standard at both the receiver and broadcaster was the source of considerable color variation. To ensure more uniform color reproduction, some manufacturers incorporated color correction circuits into sets, that converted the received signal—encoded for the colorimetric values listed above—adjusting for the actual phosphor characteristics used within the monitor. Since such color correction can not be performed accurately on

14720-601: The system as shown in the above table. Early color television receivers, such as the RCA CT-100 , were faithful to this specification (which was based on prevailing motion picture standards), having a larger gamut than most of today's monitors. Their low-efficiency phosphors (notably in the Red) were weak and long-persistent, leaving trails after moving objects. Starting in the late 1950s, picture tube phosphors would sacrifice saturation for increased brightness; this deviation from

14848-591: The system off the air until June 1951, and regular broadcasts only lasted a few months before manufacture of all color television sets was banned by the Office of Defense Mobilization in October, ostensibly due to the Korean War . A variant of the CBS system was later used by NASA to broadcast pictures of astronauts from space. CBS rescinded its system in March 1953, and the FCC replaced it on December 17, 1953, with

14976-434: The three color-difference signals, (R-Y), (B-Y), and (G-Y). The R, G, and B signals in the receiver needed for the display device (CRT, Plasma display, or LCD display) are electronically derived by matrixing as follows: R is the additive combination of (R-Y) with Y, G is the additive combination of (G-Y) with Y, and B is the additive combination of (B-Y) with Y. All of this is accomplished electronically. It can be seen that in

15104-658: The time the color standard was promulgated, the color subcarrier frequency was constructed as composite frequency assembled from small integers, in this case 5×7×9/(8×11) MHz. The horizontal line rate was reduced to approximately 15,734 lines per second (3.579545×2/455 MHz = 9/572 MHz) from 15,750 lines per second, and the frame rate was reduced to 30/1.001 ≈ 29.970 frames per second (the horizontal line rate divided by 525 lines/frame) from 30 frames per second. These changes amounted to 0.1 percent and were readily tolerated by then-existing television receivers. The first publicly announced network television broadcast of

15232-491: The time; only color sets would recognize the chroma signal, which was essentially ignored by black and white sets. The red, green, and blue primary color signals ( R ′ G ′ B ′ ) {\displaystyle (R^{\prime }G^{\prime }B^{\prime })} are weighted and summed into a single luma signal, designated Y ′ {\displaystyle Y^{\prime }} (Y prime) which takes

15360-597: The true speed of video and audio, and the pitch of voices, sound effects, and musical performances, in television films from those regions. For example, they may wonder whether the Jeremy Brett series of Sherlock Holmes television films, made in the 1980s and early 1990s, was shot at 24 fps and then transmitted at an artificially fast speed in 25-fps regions, or whether it was shot at 25 fps natively and then slowed to 24 fps for NTSC exhibition. These discrepancies exist not only in television broadcasts over

15488-409: The two carriers) is an odd multiple of half the line rate, which is the necessary condition for the dots on successive lines to be opposite in phase, making them least noticeable. The 59.94 rate is derived from the following calculations. Designers chose to make the chrominance subcarrier frequency an n + 0.5 multiple of the line frequency to minimize interference between the luminance signal and

15616-400: The video consisted only of luminance (brightness) information. Although all of the space in between was occupied, the line-based nature of the video information meant that the luminance data was not spread uniformly across the frequency domain ; it was concentrated at multiples of the line rate. Plotting the video signal on a spectrogram gave a signature that looked like the teeth of a comb or

15744-449: The video signal carrier . 3.58 MHz is often stated as an abbreviation instead of 3.579545 MHz. For a color TV to recover hue information from the color subcarrier, it must have a zero-phase reference to replace the previously suppressed carrier. The NTSC signal includes a short sample of this reference signal, known as the colorburst , located on the back porch of each horizontal synchronization pulse. The color burst consists of

15872-466: The video signal, e.g. {2, 4, 6, ..., 524}) are drawn in the first field, and the odd-numbered (every other line that would be odd if counted in the video signal, e.g. {1, 3, 5, ..., 525}) are drawn in the second field, to yield a flicker-free image at the field refresh frequency of 60 ⁄ 1.001  Hz (approximately 59.94 Hz). For comparison, 625 lines (576 visible) systems, usually used with PAL-B/G and SECAM color, and so have

16000-409: Was 3×5×5×7=525 . (For the same reason, 625-line PAL-B/G and SECAM uses 5×5×5×5 , the old British 405-line system used 3×3×3×3×5 , the French 819-line system used 3×3×7×13 etc.) Colorimetry refers to the specific colorimetric characteristics of the system and its components, including the specific primary colors used, the camera,

16128-598: Was adopted, which allowed for color television broadcast compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers. It is one of three major color formats for analog television, the others being PAL and SECAM . NTSC color is usually associated with the System M; this combination is sometimes called NTSC II. The only other broadcast television system to use NTSC color was the System J . Brazil used System M with PAL color. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos used System M with SECAM color - Vietnam later started using PAL in

16256-886: Was further recommended that studio monitors incorporate similar color correction circuits so that broadcasters would transmit pictures encoded for the original 1953 colorimetric values, in accordance with FCC standards. In 1987, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) Committee on Television Technology, Working Group on Studio Monitor Colorimetry, adopted the SMPTE C (Conrac) phosphors for general use in Recommended Practice 145, prompting many manufacturers to modify their camera designs to directly encode for SMPTE C colorimetry without color correction, as approved in SMPTE standard 170M, "Composite Analog Video Signal – NTSC for Studio Applications" (1994). As

16384-401: Was then compared with the 60 Hz power-line frequency and any discrepancy corrected by adjusting the frequency of the master oscillator. For interlaced scanning, an odd number of lines per frame was required in order to make the vertical retrace distance identical for the odd and even fields, which meant the master oscillator frequency had to be divided down by an odd number. At the time,

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