Television

Standards
Basic Monochrome Television
System
Basic Image Quality Criteria
Image definition the distinctness of the outlines in the image; the degree to which the
image appears to be in-focus; a measure of the sharpness of the transitions or edges
between its dark and light areas. In the high-definition system, these edge must be very
sharp. This quality criterium is where the High Definition TV gets its name. It is closely
related to visual acruity, the smallest angular separation at which individual lines can
be distinguish.
Gray scale specified by three parameters:
highlight brightness - the brightness of the brightest area of the image
contrast ratio - the ratio of the brightness of the brightest area to that of the darkest,
expressed in dB.
Gamma-the slope of the image brightness as a function of the scene brightness.
Signal-to-Noise ratio
Note that brightness is a subjective term that indicates the magnitude of the visual sensation
produced by a source of light. Webers Law: The increase in stimulus necessary to produce an
increase in sensation of any of our senses is not an absolute quantity but depends on the
proportion that the increase bears to the immediately preceding stimulus.
Image Defects (Some Unique to
TV images)
Flicker - an effect results when the frame rate is not high enough to cause the eye
to perceive a continuous image.
Aliasing-the production of spurious signals as the result of sampling in space and
time.
Lag -a measure of the rate of change of the video signal at a fixed point on the
raster when the scene changes. Big lag causes loss of resolution/trailing tail.
Geometric distortion
Hum- the interference caused by spurious power source voltages.
Co-channel interference- two TV stations operating on the same frequency, alternating
black and white horizontal bars across the picture.
Receiver-generated interference
Ghosts a duplicate of the main image, slightly displaced from it, usually to the right, and
much fainter. It is caused by multipath transmission (reflection of building or mountain). A
1000-ft path difference would produce a displacement of 1/63 of the scanning line length.
Aperture Response
a universal criterion for specifying picture definition and other
image system performance, including that of films, lens, TV
camera imagers, video amplifier, scanning process, receiver
picture tubes, and the human eye.
Color Video Signal
Color has a dual meaning
a physical property of visible light the perception of this property by human
vision.

Each pixel in a color image has thee basic properties luminance, hue, and
saturation in objective terms, and brightness, color, purity in corresponding
perceptual terms.
 Hue, Wavelength, and Saturation
The following table is based on monochromatic light (light with single wavelength)

The colors that appear in nature are polychromatic (mixture of many wavelength) The
wavelength of a visible light ranges from 400 to 780 nm.
White and gray light results when the radiation at all wavelengths is present in approximately
equal amount.
Saturation the ratio of the magnitude of the energy in the spectral (dominant wavelength)
component to the total energy of the light. A pure spectral color has a saturation of 100%,
while the saturation of white or gray light is 0%. The appearance of any color can be
duplicated by a mixture of white or gray light and a pure spectral color in the proper
proportions.
Analog Color TV System
Configuration
NTSC (National Television
Standards Committee)
The majority of 60Hz based countries use a technique known as NTSC originally developed
in the United States by a focus committee called the National Television Standards
Committee. NTSC works perfectly in a video or closed circuit environment but can exhibit
problems of varying color when used in a broadcast environment.
Lines: 625
Frame rate: 29.97 Hz
Picture resolutions: 720 x 480; 704 x 480; 352 x 480; 352 x 240

Philippines operate on this Standard.

Other Countries that support NTSC video are as follows:

Antilles, Netherlands, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Burma, Canada, Chile,
Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador, Grenada,
Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, South
Korea, Surinam, Taiwan, Tobago, Trinidad, United States of America, Venezuela.
Charge Coupled Device Imager in
TV Camera
VCR: Helical Scan Recording
Principle
PAL (Phase Alternate Lines)
This hue change problem is caused by shifts in the colour sub-carrier phase of the signal. A
modified version of NTSC soon appeared which differed mainly in that the sub-carrier phase
was reversed on each second line; this is known as PAL, standing for Phase Alternate Lines
PAL has been adopted by a few 60Hz countries, most notably Brazil.
Lines: 525
Frame rate: 25 Hz
Picture resolution: 720 x 576; 704 x 576; 352 x 576; 352 x 288
The countries that support PAL are as follows:

Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium,

Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Cameroon, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Ghana,
Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait,
Lesotho, Liberia, Luxemburg, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mozambique, Namibia,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay,
Portugal, Qatar, Rumania, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Spain,
Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda,
United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
SECAM
SECAM (Sequentiel Couleur avec Mmoire, French for
"sequential color with memory") Amongst the countries based
on 50Hz systems, PAL has been the most widely adopted. PAL
is not the only colour system in widespread use with 50Hz; the
French designed a system of their own -primarily for political
reasons to protect their domestic manufacturing companies -
which is known as SECAM, standing for Sequential Couleur
Avec Memoire. The most common facetious acronym is
System Essentially Contrary to American Method.

SECAM uses the same bandwidth and resolution (720x576) as PAL

SECAM on PAL
Some Satellite TV transmissions (usually Russian) that are available over
India, are in SECAM Since the field (25 frames /sec) and scan rates are
identical, a SECAM signal will replay in B&W on a PAL TV and vice versa.
However, transmission frequencies and encoding differences make
equipment incompatible from a broadcast viewpoint. For the same reason,
system converters between PAL and SECAM, while often difficult to find, are
reasonably cheap. In Europe, a few Direct Satellite Broadcasting services
use a system called D-MAC. Its use is not wide-spread at present and it is
trans-coded to PAL or SECAM to permit video recording of its signals. It
includes features for 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio transmissions and an
eventual migration path to Europe's proposed HDTV standard. There are
other MAC-based standards in use around the world including B-MAC in
Australia and B-MAC60 on some private networks in the USA. There is also a
second European variant called D2-MAC which supports additional audio
channels making transmitted signals incompatible, but not baseband signals
Slow Scan Television (SSTV)
is a picture transmission method used mainly byamateur radio
operators, to transmit and receive static pictures via radio in
monochromeor color.