Electronic Standards Conversion for Transatlantic Color Television

The development of intercontinental satellite communication has made possible the live exchange of television programs between America and Europe, resulting in the need to convert the color signal from the American 525-line, 60-field standard to the European 625-line, 50-field standard or vice versa. Until recently, there was available only the image-transfer method of conversion which is acceptable for only monochrome conversion. Color standards converters under development take advantage of solid-state techniques to obtain reliable operation and minimal degradation of picture quality. To carry out standards conversion, there are two necessary processes: lines of the input signal must be delayed so that the information carried by them is aligned with the correct synchronizing pulses of the output standard, which is now done by ultrasonic fused-quartz delay; also, lines of the signal must be interpolated in the vertical direction to avoid serration of sloping edges on still pictures, and in the time direction to avoid judder on moving pictures. A simple converter and an improved converter are discussed.

Print ISSN

0361-4573

Published

1968-01

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J05865