TV Systems

Fundamentals of Television
Introduction
What is modern Television?
An electronic system of transmitting transient
images of fixed or moving objects (video)
together with sound (audio) over a wire or
through space by apparatus that converts light
and sound into electrical waves and reconverts
them into visible light rays and audible sound.

Television is a system of transmitting and receiving information both in video

and audio. It has two major components: the TV transmitter and the TV
receiver. Both components have same characteristics but opposite in
function.

Television comes from two French words tele which means “from a far” and
vision means “sight”.
Major Classification
Digital Television (DTV) is the broadcast of pictures,
sound, or data in pure digital format.
Analog Television (ATV) is the broadcast of pictures,
sound, or data in analog format.

High Definition TV (HDTV) is a high- Standard Definition TV (SDTV) is a

resolution picture which is digitally
broadcast to compatible home TV
sets. The images are extraordinarily
clear and bright, and they are wider
than current TV screens.
lower resolution picture than HDTV
and is broadcast in analog to
standard home TV sets.
How TV was designed

 There are two amazing things about your

brain that make television possible. By
understanding these two facts, you gain
a good bit of insight into why televisions
are designed the way they are.
1.) Reassembly
2.) Motion
Our Brain at Work

This is a standard piece of home video showing

a happy baby playing with a toy. It embodies
the two principles that make TV possible. The
two principles are shown evidently here but
without you being aware of it!
REASSEMBLY
The first principle is this:
“If you divide a still image into
a collection of small
colored dots, your brain
will reassemble the dots
into a meaningful image.”

The only way we can see that

this is actually happening is
to blow the dots up so big
that our brains can no longer
assemble them, like this:
Motion
The human brain's second amazing feature relating to television is this: If
you divide a moving scene into a sequence of still pictures and
show the still images in rapid succession, the brain will
reassemble the still images into a single, moving scene. Take, for
example, these four frames from the example video:

By putting together 16 or more slightly different frames per second, the

brain integrates them into a moving scene. 16 frames per second is
about the minimum possible -- any fewer than that and it looks jerky.
Persistence of Vision
 Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which
an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately 40
milliseconds on the retina.
 In the early days of film innovation, it was scientifically
determined that a frame rate of less than sixteen frames per
second (16 fps) caused the mind to see flashing images. (as in a
Flipbook)
 Modern theatrical film runs at 24 frames per second. This is the
case for both physical film and digital cinema systems.
 Rule #1: Hig frame rate = quality

12 fps (83 ms/frame)

6 fps (166 ms/frame) 

Phi-phenomenon

 The phi phenomenon is the optical

illusion of perceiving continuous motion
between separate objects viewed rapidly
in succession.
 The phenomenon was defined by Max
Wertheimer in 1912 and along
with persistence of vision formed a part
of the base of the theory of cinema.
First ever Motion Picture
 Filmed by British photographer Eadweard
Muybridge (April 9, 1830 - May 8, 1904)
 2.0 second video, taken at 6 fps
 “Sallie Gardner at a Gallop”, also known
as “The Horse in Motion”
 Created on June 15, 1878
TV History
 A German, Dr. Paul Nipkow, proposed and
patented the world's first mechanical
television system in 1884. Known as the
Nipkow Disk.
 British John Logie Baird has demonstrated
to the public a working model of an
electromechanical TV in 1926.
 American Charles Francis Jenkins started to
build a mechanical system using a variation
in the designs by Nipkow in 1923 and
demonstrated it in public on 1925.
 American Philo Taylor Farnsworth is
considered as the Father of Electronic
Television. He first demonstrated his system
to the press on September 3, 1928.
The Electromechanical TV
Modern TV
 The World’s First Live Television Broadcast
Demonstration Was in Jan. 26, 1926 made by John
Logie Baird in London.
 On November 2, 1936 the BBC began transmitting the
world's first public television service in London.
 The first electronic television sets sold in the United
States hit retailer shelves in 1938.
 In 1948, viewers were introduced to the first remote
control for a television set.
 In 1962, American TV station ABC became the first
station to broadcast in color.
TV Cameras

Modern TV camera
used starting 1970’s

Old Color TV Camera are huge during the 1950’s

Inside the Electronic Camera
 The 1927 version of
Philo Farnsworth’s
image dissector.
 He received a patent for
the image dissector in
1930, and successfully
defended that patent Image Dissector
against Vladimir
Zworykin and David (1925 – 1933)
Sarnoff
Iconoscope
 An iconoscope is a
camera tube that
projects an image on a
special "charge
storage" plate
containing a mosaic of
electrically isolated
photosensitive granules The first practical iconoscope
separated from a was constructed in 1931 by
common plate by a thin Sanford Essig
layer of isolating (1931 – 1946)
material.
Iconoscope Principle
Super Emitron
The scene image is projected
onto an efficient continuous
film semi
transparent photocathode th
at transforms the scene light
into a light-emitted electron
image.
The super-Emitron was between
ten and fifteen times more
sensitive than the original The super-Emitron is a combination
Image dissector and of the Image dissector and the
iconoscope tubes. Iconoscope.
( 1942 -1958 )
Image Orthicon

 An image orthicon consists of three parts: a photocathode with

an image store ("target"), a scanner that reads this image (an
electron gun), and a multistage electron multiplier.

(1942 – 1950+)
Old Types of Imaging Devices
Camera Tubes (1950s – 1960s)

Vidicon - Antimony Plumbicon - Lead Oxide Newvicon -

Trisulfide photoconductive photoconductive layer. photoconductive layer
layer. consists of ZnSe, ZnTe,
By PHILLIPS and CdTe
By RCA
By Matsushita
Saticon - SeAsTe (Panasonic)
photoconductive layer.
By Hitachi
Modern Imaging Devices (1970 up)
CCD (Charge-Coupled
Devices)
A more advanced and
more the precise
imaging device that
almost replaced
camera tubes in the
EX. This is a 1 megapixel (1024 x
most common 1024) digital camera module with a
applications. This frame transfer CCD image sensor
includes: Linear that gives true 12-bit images at 15
arrays, Matrix arrays, frames per second.
etc.
CCD Operation
RCA made some of the first commercially available CCD chips. A CCD (Charge
Couple Device) is a silicon solid state imaging device which are made up a
two dimensional array of photo detectors coupled to an array of shift
registers. In operation, the imaging cycle is roughly as follows:
The device is "reset" or cleared. Then some time is allowed to pass. This is
called the integration time.
The charges that have accumulated on the photo sites are shifted to a second
portion of the chip called the storage registers.
The photo sites are now rest again and begin staring for the next frame cycle.
The charges, now being held in what is essentially an analog memory are
fed into a second one dimensional shift register for read out on a line by line
basis.
This continues until all of the charges have been read out of the storage array.
At the end of the integrating cycle, this process is repeated.

CCD's can actually be read out at any speed, up to their maximum, or even
"frozen" and read out continuously. In a video camera application, things
are simpler. The cycle is just a scanned set of pulses that repeats 60 times a
second, forming a continuous output know as "video".
Scanning the lines
Scanning is the process where a frame is divided into a
fixed number of horizontal lines with equal widths and
each line is traced in consecutive order. Each line is
called a scan line.

Generally:
For the NTSC standard, a frame is divided into 525 scan
lines. The scene is delivered at 30 fps.
For the PAL/SECAM standard, a frame is divided into
625 scan lines and the scene is delivered at a rate of
only 25 fps.

*fps = frames per second

How a Frame is converted….

1
2
3
4
5
6
.
.
.
. A single
Frame
divided into
lines

Frame

Rule #2: More # of lines = Higher quality

….into electrical signals
Progressive Scanning
1
2
3
4
5
6
.
.
. 1 Frame
.
divided into
consecutive
lines

1 frame

Line 3 Line 2 Line 1

Each line is transmitted serially

Interlaced scanning (Fields)
2
1
4
3
6
5
8
7
10
9
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In interlaced scanning, a .
.
complete frame is further .
.
divided into two “fields”.
The odd numbered lines
make up the odd field
Odd Field and the even numbered Even Field
lines make up the even
field.
Effect of Interlacing the Fields
Frame (1) Frame (2) Frame (3)
Odd Even Odd Even Odd Even

3 distinct frames becomes 6 different frames

Interlaced Video
 Interlaced video is a technique of doubling the perceived frame
rate introduced with the signal without consuming
extra bandwidth.
 Since the interlaced signal contains the two fields of a video
frame captured at two different times, it enhances motion
perception to the viewer and reduces flicker by taking advantage
of the Phi phenomenon effect.
 This results in an effective doubling of time resolution (temporal
resolution) as compared with non-interlaced footage. Interlaced
signals require a display that is natively capable of showing the
individual fields.
 Only CRT displays and Plasma displays are capable of
displaying interlaced signals, due to the electronic scanning and
lack of apparent fixed-resolution sequential order.
De-Interlacing the Fields
Frame (N-1) Frame (N) Frame (N+1)
Odd Even Odd Even Odd Even

Frame Frame
Effects of Interlacing

When interlaced video is watched on a progressive video monitor without

de-interlacing, it exhibits combining (“interline twitter”) when there is
movement between two fields of one frame.
Interlace causes details to “twitter”
Anti-Aliasing in the interlaced video will “blur” the details to prevent “interline twitter”, but it reduces the
resolution. Even the best line-doubler could never restore the interlaced image to the full resolution of
the progressive image.

Original

w/ Anti-aliasing

w/ line doublers
Progressive Interlaced “bob” interpolation
Aliasing and Anti-Aliasing
Aliasing refers to an effect that
causes different signals to
become indistinguishable
(or aliases of one another)
when sampled.
It also refers to the distortion or
A
Original Aliased Anti-aliased

artifact that results when the

signal reconstructed from
samples is different from the
original continuous signal.

Left: aliased image

Right: anti-aliased image
Trace and Retrace
Terms

 Aspect Ratio = unit ratio of the frame width

over the frame height
 SDTV = 4:3
 HDTV = 16:9
 Blanking means “going to black”, aimed to
make scanning retraces invisible to the TV
receiver and avoid flicker
 Interlaced Scanning = the process where scan
lines are traced alternately between two fields
Scan time

 For the NTSC standard

Horizontal trace time (scan time, line time)
- The time needed to scan trace one horizontal scan line
Horizontal Scanning Frequency
= 15,750 Hz Monochrome
= 15,734 Hz Color
Vertical Scanning Frequency (Field Rate)
= 60 Hz Monochrome (Frame rate = 30 Hz)
= 59.94 Hz Color (Frame rate = 29.97 Hz)
Pulses..
 Horizontal Sync Pulse – is used at the receiver to keep
the sweep circuits that drive the picture tube in step
with the transmitted signal
 Vertical Sync Pulse – used at the receiver to keep the
vertical sweep circuits synchronized while vertical
trace is in progress
 Horizontal blanking pulse – used in the receiver to
blank the screen while a horizontal retrace is in
progress
 Vertical blanking pulse - used in the receiver to blank
the screen while a vertical retrace is in progress
 Equalizing pulse – used to help synchronize the the
half-scan lines in each field transition
 Flyback – another term used to signify line retrace
Video Baseband (Monochrome)
Pulse Widths? (Monochrome)
V-sync & V-blank

Field Sync Waveforms (CCIR 625 line system)

CRT – Cathode Ray Tube
 In a CRT, the "cathode" is a heated filament. The heated filament is in a vacuum
created inside a glass "tube." The "ray" is a stream of electrons that naturally pour
off a heated cathode into the vacuum.
 In a TV's cathode ray tube, the stream of electrons is focused by a focusing anode
into a tight beam and then accelerated by an accelerating anode.
 This tight, high-speed beam of electrons flies through the vacuum in the tube and
hits the flat screen at the other end of the tube.
 This screen is coated with phosphor, which glows when struck by the beam.
 The conductive coating is also connected to the anode and is called “aquadag”
 Magnetic coils around the neck of the tube are used to deflect the electron beam
horizontally and vertically. This is also called “deflection yoke”. It has a vertical
deflection coil and a horizontal deflection coil.
Screen Characteristics
 Brightness – average of overall illumination on the
picture tube screen. It depends on the high voltage
and DC grid bias of the picture tube.
 Contrast – the difference in the intensity of the black
parts and white parts of the picture. The peak to peak
AC video signal determines the contrast
 Tint – hue of the color elements. It depends on the
phase angle of the 3.58 MHz chrominance signal
 Saturation – the intensity of the color elements. It
depends on the amplitude of the 3.58 MHz
chrominance signal
Inside view..

Close-up of the deflection coils

High-voltage transformer or
and electron gun
“flyback” transformer capable of
producing around 20 kiloVolts
SMPTE color bars
SMPTE color bars is a standard television test pattern used where the NTSC
video standard is utilized.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) refers to

this test pattern as Engineering Guideline EG 1-1990.

Comparing this pattern as received to the

known standard gives video engineers an 4:3
indication of how an NTSC video signal has SDTV
been altered by recording or transmission and
what adjustments must be made to bring it
back to specification. The pattern is also used
for setting a television monitor or receiver to
reproduce NTSC chrominance and luminance
16:9
information correctly.
HDTV