ESSENTIALS OF COLOR

TRANSMISSION AND NTSC SYSTEM

Compatibility requirements of Color system.

It

should produce a normal black

and white picture on a monochrome
receiver without any modification of
receiver circuitry.
A color receiver must be able to
produce a black and white picture
from monochrome signal.

Requirements of color
signal
It

should occupy same bandwidth as the

monochrome signal.
Location and spacing of picture and sound
carriers must be the same.
Same luminance information as a monochrome
signal transmitting the same scene.
Color information should be carried such that it
does not interfere with picture on the screen of
a monochrome receiver.
Same deflection frequencies and sync signals as
in monochrome system.

How Color is Perceived by Eyes?

Explained by HelmHoltz theory

Two types of light sensitive organs, rods and cones
Rods provide brightness sensation and cones are
sensitive to color
Three sets of cones with each sensitive to red, blue
and green lights respectively.
Thus each set of cones detects the amount of RGB
components in light.
The optic nerve system integrates different color
impressions as per the response curve of eye to
perceive the actual color.

Response curve of eyes

Additive Color Mixing &

Grassmans law
Additive mixing forms the basis of color television
Here light from two or more colors combine
together to give sensation of a new color.
The additive mixing of primary colors- red, blue
and green can create most of the colors.

 GRASSMANS

LAW

Eye is not able to distinguish each of the

colors that mix to form the new color.
Eye behaves as if the output of different
set of cones are additive.
Brightness impression created by
combined light source is equal to the
numerical sum of 3 primary colors that
constitute that color.
The property of eye producing a response
based on algebraic sum of red, blue and
green inputs is called Grassmans law.

Based on spectral response curve and Grassmans

law , the tristimulus values have been developed.
Tristimulus values are the component values of
three primary colors to produce various other
colors.
Thus the reference white for TV has been chosen to
be a mixture of 30% red, 59% green and 11% blue.
Therefore 1 lumen of white=0.3 lm of red+0.59lm
of green+ 0.11 lm of red.
Alternatively 1lm of white =0.89 lm of yellow+ 0.11
lm of blue=0.7 lm cyan+ 0.3 lm red

Characteristics of Color
Luminance or Brightness

It is the amount of brightness as perceived by eye regardless of color.

Better lighted parts have more luminance than dark areas.

Hue

It is the predominant spectral color of received light.

Different hues result from different wavelengths of spectral radiation.

Saturation

It is the spectral purity of color.

Indication of amount of other colors present.
Or can be defined as how much the color is diluted by white.
A fully saturated color has no white.

Chrominanance
Hue and saturation of a color put together is
called chrominance.
Also called chroma.
A color system has to handle the chroma
information apart from luminance.

Color Television Camera

Color voltage amplitudes

Y signal amplitudes

Color Difference voltages

In color systems the Y signal is transmitted as it

is.
But instead of transmitting all three color
signals separately ,only color difference signals
are transmitted.
Color difference signals are obtained by
subtracting
luminance voltage from color voltage.
Only R-Y and B-Y signals are sent and the color
signals are derived from these at the receiver.

Why G-Y signal not transmitted?

We have Y=0.3R+ 0.59G+ .11B

ie, (0.3+ 0.59 +0.11)Y=0.3R +0.59G +0.11B
Rearranging ,

But if G-Y is transmitted,

1. If R-Y is the missing signal, then

R-Y=(-0.59/0.3) G-Y + (-.11/0.3) B-Y
This implies a gain factor in the resistor matrix.
2. If B-Y is not sent then
B-Y= (-0.59/0.11)G-Y (O.3/0.11)R-Y

Moreover, proportion since proportion of G

is large in many signals then, value of G-Y
will be small.

It is either the smallest of the signals or

almost equal to smallest of other two

The smaller amplitude of G-Y will also

introduce signal to noise ratio problems if
selected for transmission.

COLOUR TV SYSTEMS
The basic color tv systems are;
1) The American NTSC ( National Television
Systems Committee) system
2)

The German PAL ( Phase Alteration by

Line)

3)

The French SECAM(Sequential Couleures

a memoire) system.

In color tv systems, the problem of confining

color signals within the same bandwidth of
monochrome signal is achieved using Frequency
Interleaving.

Frequency Interleaving

It has been found that the energy content of

composite video signal occur as bundles which
occur at harmonics of line frequency( 15.625,
31.250..Khz)
Shape of energy bundle shows a peak at exact
harmonics of line frequency

Composite Video signal

Energy

From the fig. we can see that energy content

decreases significantly after increase in
harmonics
and is much smaller after 3.5 Mhz.

Also a part of monochrome signal bandwidth get

unused due to spacing between the bundles.

It is here the color information is packed by

modulating color difference voltages using what
is known as a color sub carrier.
This frequency is so chosen that its sideband fall
exactly midway between harmonics of line
frequency.

Thus the frequency of subcarrier must be an

odd multiple of half the line frequency.

In order to avoid crosstalk with picture info,

it is selected at the higher side of channel
bandwidth.

In NTSC system the subcarrier is 455 times

one half the line frequency ie,
(2*227 +1)*(15750/2) = 3.58 Mhz

Modulation of Color Differerence

voltages
The problem of transmitting two color
difference voltages with same carrier is
solved using Quadrature Modulation.
Here two separate modulators are used,
one for the B-Y and other for R-Y. But the
carrier freq fed to one modulator is given a
relative phase shift of 90 with respect to
another.
Thus the two signals are said to be in
quadrature and the two outputs are
combined to yield C, the subcarrier phasor.

The instantaneous amplitude of C ie,

chrominance signal, gives the color
saturation at that instant.
Maximum amp. Implies greatest saturation
and zero to no saturation ie, white.
The instantaneous phase angle of C varies
from 0 to 360 and gives info on the hue of
the color.
Thus phasor C contains full info on hue and
saturation.

Quadrature Modulation

Color Burst signal

Suppressed carrier with double sidebands is

the normal method for modulating color diff
voltages with color sub carrier.

In order to ensure proper demodulation at

the receiver , a short sample of subcarrier
oscillator, (having 8-11 cycles) called color
burst is sent to receiver along with sync
signals.
This is located at the backporch of
horizontal blanking pedestal.

Location of Color Burst

signal

Weighting factors and why are they

required?
The chrominance signal phasor, C is added
to luminance signal, Y before modulating it
with channel carrier.
The amplitude of Y signal becomes the
level line for this purpose.
But directly using this values will lead to
gross overmodulation. To avoid this
weighting factors are used.

For eg. The peak to peak amplitudes of

green signal(+- 0.83) gets added to
corresponding luminance amplitude of
0.59.
However, the signal peaks of this chroma
waveform will exceed the limits of 100%
modulation.

Therefore to avoid overmodulation, the

values of color difference voltage signal are
reduced before they are modulated using
color sub carrier.
This is achieved by scaling down the color
signal voltages by multiplying with values
known as the Weighting Factors
The weighting factors are 0.877 for R-Y
component and 0.493 for B-Y component.
Then finally for proper reception the
uncompensated values are obtained at the
receiver side using suitable network.

Formation of Chrominance signal

Typical values of amplitudes of color sub
carriers are 0.63 for red and cyan, 0.59 for
green and magenta and 0.44 for blue and
yellow.
Though these amplitudes will still cause
over modulation by about 33% it is
acceptable. This is because saturation of
hues in natural and staged scenes seldom
exceed 75%.

Phasor diagram of Chroma signal

Due to weighting factors the phase angles

of color circle changes to give new values

NTSC SYSTEM
This

system is compatible with the 525 line

American monochrome system.
Here bandwidth for color transmission is
reduced by using properties of human eye.
Here advantage is taken of the limitations of
human eye to restrict color signal bandwidth.
Eyes resolution of colors o the reddish blue
yellowish green axis is much less than colors
around yellowish red -greenish blue axis .
Therefore two new color signals I and Q are
generated.

I signal lies in a region 33 degree counter

clockwise to R-Y where eye has max resolution.

I=0.74(R-Y) 0.27(B-Y)
Which gives I as
I=0.60 R- 0.28G-0.32B

I signal is located at 57 degree with respect to the

burst signal.

Similarly, Q signal is derived as

Q=0.48(R-Y)+0.41(B-Y)
=0.21R-0.52G+0.31B
It is located 33 degree counter clockwise to +(B-Y)
and is in quadrature with I signal.

Since eye is capable of resolving fine details of

colors in the I region, it is given a bandwidth of up
to 1.5 Mhz.
As eye is less sensitive to colors in the Q region, it
is given a bandwidth of only +-0.5 Mhz with
respect to color subcarrier.
Double sideband transmission is allowed for Q
signal and it occupies a bandwidth of 1Mhz(+-0.5)
But for I signal, the USB is restricted to 0.5Mhz
but LSB is allowed to have frequencies up to
1.5Mhz.

Therefore, overall a bandwidth of 2 Mhz is

required for color signal transmission.
This implies a saving of 1 Mhz if color diff voltages
were directly sent.
This reduced bandwidth results in reduced
interference with picture and sound carriers.

Choosing The Color Sub

Carrier
The exact value of color sub carrier in NTSC
system is 3.579545 Mhz
It is chosen with such precision to maintain
compatibility btw monochrome and color systems.
When a color signal is received on a
monochrome receiver a dot pattern structure
appears along each raster line on the screen.
It is to reduce this effect, the color sub carrier
value has been chosen as 3.579545 Mhz.

The dot pattern structure is caused due to color

signal frequencies that lie within the pass band of
video section of filter.

To explain this phenomenon, assume that the

interfering color signal has a sinusoidal variation
which rides along avg brightness level of
monochrome signal.
This produce black and white dots on the screen.
If subcarrier freq equals n times line freq, the
pattern will add up in succesive odd and even
fields.

But if sub carrier freq is equal to odd multiples of one

half the line freq, the dot patterns will get suppressed.

This calls for color sub carrier freq to be chosen as

3.583125 ie, (2*227+1)15750/2 Mhz.

But with this value, the picture and sound carrier
beat with each other at a beat note of 0.92Mhz (4.53.58)
To reduce this effect, the sound carrier should be an
exact even multiple of line frequency.
Since location of sound carrier cannot be
disturbed(4.5 Mhz) for compatibility reasons, it is
made an even multiple of line freq.
Thus a value fh=4.5 Mhz/286=15734.26 khz is
chosen

 The line freq is thus changed from original 15750 Hz to

15734.26 Mhz
Since there are 262.5 lines which are scanned in each
frame of 525 line system, field freq is changed to a new
value of 15734.26/262.5=59.94 Hz instead of 60Hz.
Thus F=(2*227+1)15734.26/2=3.579545 Mhz. It is
derived from a crystal controlled oscillator.
The small changes n line freq, about 15.74Hz and field
freq 0.06 Hz has practically no effect on deflection
oscillators as an oscillator which can be triggered by 60
Hz pulses can also be synchronised for 59.94 Hz
Also AFC circuit can easily adjust the line freq