Colour Television Fundamentals (NTSC)

To better understand how to select good colours and colour

combinations for web pages or other computer graphics work, it
is essential to understand a few concepts about colour television,
which is the basis of computer video systems. Many techniques
and optimizations were developed for colour television to
conserve bandwidth, and these techniques were developed
based on research into how the human eye perceives light, detail
and colour. This information still largely applies to computer
video displays, and absolutely applies if computer video is to be
transmitted or stored in any colour television video format.
This section provides a very brief introduction to how the NTSC
colour television system works and how its design applies to
computer video.

Historical Details
The National Television Systems Committee (NTSC), a group of the
Electronics Industries Association (EIA) developed the specifications for
the colour television broadcasting system that was selected for use in the
United States, now known simply as "NTSC". The Federal
Communications Commission adopted the NTSC system in December of
1953.
The first "consumer", mass-produced NTSC colour televisions were
manufactured beginning on March 25th, 1954 by the Radio Corporation of
America (RCA). Initial sales were limited because these units cost over
$1,000 US each and there was virtually no colour programming, other
than a few experimental broadcasts transmitted by the National
Broadcasting Company (NBC).
Prior to the NTSC standard and the first RCA model that used that
standard, there were a small number of other manufacturers that
developed colour television designs, some of which were produced in tiny
quantities, with one design selling only one receiver. Of these pre-NTSC
designs, the Columbia Broadcasting System was the main alternate
contender to become the national colour broadcast standard, despite it
being incompatible with the existing black and white broadcast standard.

Experimentation on methods for transmitting colour television began as

early as 1929.

The NTSC system is scheduled to be withdrawn from broadcast use in the

United States on February 17, 2009. Originally, the date was to be the end
of 2006 or when the number of households with a HDTV receiver reached
a certain level (whichever came later). This formula was changed in 2006
by the U.S. Congress and now the termination of NTSC broadcasts will
occur at an arbitrary date in 2009 selected by Congress, regardless of
market penetration at that date. (The proponents of the change believe
the government can make large amounts of money auctioning the old
VHF bands to wireless communication companies for wireless telephone
and other purposes, although the larger aerial size required to effectively
use those frequencies is a problem that Congress continues to ignore.)
To assist in the transition to the replacement broadcast system,
converters are to be sold) that will receive the new broadcast signals and
down-convert them into a NTSC format signal that the existing NTSC
televisions can display. Consumers will have roughly one year to
purchase this device or replace their NTSC receivers. In addition, the U.
S. government will make available two government rebate coupons worth
$40 each to apply toward the purchase of these devices. They can be
requested at the web site: As of December 2007, Walmart, Best Buy and
Radio Shack are retailers that indicate that they will sell these devices,
which are expected to go on sale in the first quarter of 2008.

NTSC is being replaced with a digitally-encoded broadcast system. U. S.

broadcasters were issued with a license for a second channel in the mid-
1990s, and it was hoped that the broadcasters would use the subsequent
ten year period to install digital broadcast equipment and run the new
transmissions in parallel with the old analog NTSC system until the FCC
revokes the analog broadcast licenses. Many stations are now offering
this simultaneous broadcast service, but a large number of stations have
delayed the conversion until the last minute due to the substantial costs.

The analog NTSC system uses Amplitude Modulation (AM) to transmit the
video image, and Frequency Modulation (FM) to transmit the audio. The
new "digital" broadcast system for the United States uses Vestigial Side
Band Modulation (VSB-32) to transmit all components of the television
broadcast, and is not directly compatible with existing television
equipment.

The replacement digital broadcast system still relies on many of the

techniques that have been proven by the analog NTSC system, and
analog NTSC will continue to be used for many years in home
entertainment devices, in cable or direct satellite broadcast systems, and
in other countries that also adopted the NTSC system with few or no
changes.

The remainder of this discussion in this section focuses mainly on the

NTSC analog system.

Video Basics - Luminance and

Chrominance
To begin with, the actual image presented in colour
television systems can be described using two
components: Luminance and Chrominance.
Luminance is a weighted sum of the three colours of
light used in colour television and computer displays -
which are Red, Green and Blue - at a given point on the
screen. A stronger Luminance signal indicates a more
intense brightness of light at a given spot on the screen.
Chrominance describes the frequency of light at a
given point on the screen, or in more common terms, the
colour of the light to be produced at a given point. The
Chrominance signal specifies what colour is to be shown
at a given point on the display as well as how saturated
or intense the shade of colour that is shown.
Combinations of Red, Green and Blue light produced by
the video display are able to deceive the human eye into
perceiving the full range of visible colours, even though
only three narrow ranges of frequencies in the visible
spectrum can actually be generated by the video display.
(This is reasonable, since the human eye only detects
light frequencies centered around what we perceive as
Red, Green and Blue, although human sensitivity to
wavelengths of light is greater than the narrow
wavelengths that the typical video display generates.)
Together, Luminance indicates how bright a given
location on the screen is, and Chrominance specifies how
close to not having a colour (just being "White"), or how
intense the shade of colour at the brightness specified by
the Luminance should be.
Those familiar with printing or painting might wonder why
Red, Yellow and Blue are not used in video, since these
colours are usually stated (incorrectly) to be the primary
ink colours. (They are really Magenta, Yellow and Cyan.)
The difference is due to the fact that video is an additive
light process, where light at the frequencies of Red,
Green and Blue are combined to make what appears to
the eye to be "White". In printing, you start with White
paper and Magenta, Yellow and Cyan inks mask and take
away reflectivity from the White paper, a process known
as the Subtraction of Colours. Photographic film (also a
subtractive system) also employ Magenta, Yellow, and
Cyan dye layers.
For Addition of Colours, such as that found in lighting,
things are different. Theater lighting designers had
discovered many years ago that Green had to be used
(instead of Yellow) with Red and Blue lights in order to
obtain a more natural White area illumination when using
border or "strip" lighting. Yellow, Red and Blue light
combined tends to produce an Orange colour, although
part of this is due to the use of tungsten lighting, which
already has a yellow bias. This experience was likely
made known to the developers of colour television. The
fact that the cone in the human eye that detects the
middle frequencies of visible light is more centered
wavelengths considered to be "green" light rather than
yellow light was also a factor.
The three colours (Red, Green and Blue) found in colour
television are not used evenly to compute the Luminance
value. This is because the human eye is much more
sensitive to some frequencies of light than others. Green
light, with a wavelength of 500nm or so, is detected by
the human eye far more easily than the extremes of the
visible spectrum, as in Red (approximately 700nm) and
Violet (approximately 400nm). This unbalanced sensitivity
must be replicated by colour video systems to allow
reproduced images to appear natural.
Studies into the sensitivity of the human eye and the
sensitivity of black and white film to various frequencies
of light were all used by the designers of the NTSC colour
television system in deciding what combination of Red,
Green and Blue intensities should be considered to be
"White".
A video signal containing a Luminance signal and no
Chrominance signal is a black and white image. A
Chrominance signal by itself has no meaning.

BLOCK DIAGRAM OF T.V. RECEIVER

How a TV works
For the most part a TV station broadcasts a television program by
converting a television program (sound and video) into a radio
frequency which is then transmitted to a broad area. A TV set receives
these signals and then turns these signals into sound and video by
converting the radio frequency into an image. The image is created by
small pixels being shot from an electron gun on the back of your TV set.
The image you see is obviously not a real image, it is a series of very
small dots called pixels which are perceived by your brain as a full
image.
How the Brain Perceives Images
The reason TV works is partly due to the way the brain perceives
information. All TV sets show images made from thousands of very
small dots called pixels, however when these small pixels are closely
packed together they create an image to our brain. The amount of pixels
in an image can determine the quality of a picture, usually the more
pixels in an image, the higher the quality. HDTV is known for creating
more pixels than standard TV.
Cathode Ray Tube is Essential to the TV Colour Process
Most TV's in use today use a cathode ray tube, commonly referred to as
a CRT (Please note that digital TV's such as LCD and Plasma use other
technologies). The CRT is the primary technology behind the standard
TV set.
The word cathode is a word used in electronics. Just like most people
use positive and negative when referring to a battery, the word anode
and cathode are used as well. Anode refers to being positive, cathode
means being negative.
Inside a cathode ray tube, there is a filament that is heated up, just like
your ordinary, everyday light bulb. However, the filament is heated up
in a vacuum inside a glass tube instead of a glass light bulb. Cathode
stands for the filament in a glass tube, the ray from "cathode ray tube"
stands for the stream of electrons that are created and that stream from
the filament.
Inside the TV set is also a flat screen which is on the other end of the
cathode ray tube. This screen is coated with a chemical called phosphor.
Phosphor has special qualities that make it give off light when struck.
Getting back to the cathode ray tube, when the filament heats up and the
ray, which is the stream of electrons are created. Electrons are negative
in charge (cathode), and they seek a positive charge (anode). The
electrons are drawn to a focusing anode inside the CRT tube and create
a tight beam that is extremely fast. This tight, fast beam of electrons
comes shooting out hitting the flat screen at the opposite end.
Remember, this flat screen is coated with phosphor and will glow when
it is struck with electrons.
Colour TV screens have three electron beams that shoot out of the CRT
to the flat screen. Each of these beams has a name: red beam, green
beam and blue beam. The screen of a colour TV set is actually made up
of three different sheets of phosphor. While black and white TV's only
have one sheet of phosphor, colour TV's have a screen coated with red,
blue and green phosphors sheets. These phosphor sheets are arranged in
dots or can be arranged in stripes. You can't see these dots or stripes
with the naked eye, however if you have a powerful magnifying glass,
you will be able to view them. Finally, inside the sheet is a device called
a shadow mask. A shadow mask is a screen with very tiny holes. These
tiny holes are aligned with the red dots or stripes. They help provide a
clear picture for the viewer.

Creating Colour
TV's create colour by mixing the red, blue and green beam and sheets.
For instance, the colour blue can be created by shooting the lue beam at
the blue phosphor sheet. White is created when all three beams are shot
at all three phosphor sheets. Mixing all three colours create white,
however black is created by turning off all three beams. Other colours
can be created using the primary colours of red, blue and green.
Colour TV Signal
A colour TV signal is similar to a black and white signal; however there
is an extra chrominance signal that is added on. This extra chrominance
is added by superimposing a 3.579545 MHZ sine wave on the end of a
standard black and white signal. A colour TV signal includes eight
cycles of the 3.579545 MHZ sine wave after a horizontal sync pulse.
This process is called a colour burst.
In addition to the chrominance signal and colour burst, you will have a
phase shift that follows. A phase shift is a signal that indicates what
colour is to be displayed by the TV set. The signal determines this by
the amplitude of the signal as well as the saturation. It is important to
note that black and white TV's filter out the chrominance signal.
Basic Principles

The Sound and Light Spectrum

Video is a combination of light and sound, both of which are made up of
vibrations or frequencies. We are surrounded by various forms of vibrations:
visible, tangible, audible, and many other kinds that our senses are unable to
perceive. We are in the midst of a wide spectrum which extends from zero to
many millions of vibrations per second. The unit we use to measure vibrations per
second is Hertz (Hz).
Sound vibrations occur in the lower regions of the spectrum, whereas light
vibrations can be found in the higher frequency areas. The sound spectrum ranges
from 20 to 20,000 Hertz (Hz). Light vibrations range from 370 trillion (1 trillion
= 1,000,000,000,000) to 750 trillion Hz. When referring to light, we speak of
wavelengths rather than vibrations.
As a result of the very high frequencies and the speed at which light travels
(300,000 km per second), the wavelength is extremely short, less than one
thousandth of a millimeter. The higher the vibration, the shorter the wavelength.
Not all light beams have the same wavelength. The spectrum of visible light
ranges from wavelength of 0,00078 mm or 780 nm (nanometer) to a wavelength
of 0,00038 mm (380 nm). We perceive the various wavelengths as different
colours. The longest wavelength (which corresponds to the lowest frequency) is
seen by us as the colour red followed by the known colours of the rainbow:
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet which is the shortest wavelength
(and highest frequency). White is not a colour but the combination of the other
colours. Wavelengths which we are unable to perceive (occurring just below the
red and just above the violet area), are the infrared and ultraviolet rays,
respectively. Nowadays, infrared is used for such applications as remote control
devices.

Visible light as part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Note: visible light is only visible because we can see the source and the objects
being illuminated. The light beam itself cannot be seen. The beams of headlights
in the mist for instance, can only be seen because the small water drops making
up the mist reflect the light.

Luminosity
Besides differing in colour (frequency), light can also differ in luminosity, or
brightness. A table lamp emits less light than a halogen lamp, but even a halogen
source cannot be compared with bright sunlight, as far as luminosity is concerned.
Luminosity depends on the amount of available light. It can be measured and
recorded in a numeric value. In the past, it was expressed in Hefner Candlepower,
but nowadays Lux is used to express the amount of luminosity.
Brightness Values:

Candle light at 20 cm 10-15 Lux

Street light 10-20 Lux
Normal living room lighting 100 Lux
Office fluorescent light 300-500 Lux
Halogen lamp 750 Lux
Sunlight, 1 hour before sunset 1000 Lux
Daylight, cloudy sky 5000 Lux
Daylight, clear sky 10,000 Lux
Bright sunlight > 20,000 Lux

Luminosity is the basic principle of the black-and-white television. All shades

between black and white can be created by adjusting the luminosity to specific
values.

Colour Mixing
There are two kinds of colour mixing: additive and subtractive colour mixing.
The mixing of colourants, like paint, is called subtractive mixing. The mixing of
coloured light is called additive mixing. Colour TV is based on the principle of
additive colour mixing. Primary colours are used to create all the colours that can
be found in the colour spectrum.

Additive Colour Mixing

In video, the colour spectrum contains three primary colours, namely red, green
and blue. By combining these three, all the other colours of the spectrum
(including white) can be produced.
red + blue = magenta (purple)
red + green = yellow
 blue + green = cyan
(blue/www.magnavox.com/electreference/videohandbook
green)
green + magenta = white
red + cyan = white
blue + yellow = white
red + blue + green = white

Making colours in this way is based on blending, or adding up coloured light,

which is why it is called additive colour mixing. Combining the three primary
colours in specific ratios and known amounts enables us to produce all possible
colours.

By combining the three primary colours red, green and blue, other
colours can be mixed, including white.
White light is derived from a ratio of 30% red, 59% green, and 11% blue. This is
also the ratio to which a colour TV is set for black-and-white broadcasts. Shades
of grey can be created by maintaining the ratio percentages and by varying the
luminosity to specific values.
30% red + 59% green + 11% blue = white

Light Refraction
Light refraction is the reverse process of colour mixing. It shows that white light
is a combination of all the colours of the visible light spectrum. To demonstrate
refraction a prism is used, which is a piece of glass that is polished in a triangular
shape. A light beam travelling through a prism is broken twice in the same
direction, causing the light beam to change its original course.
Beams with a long wavelength (the red beams) are refracted less strongly than
beams with a short wavelength (the violet beams), causing the colours to fan out.
The first fan out is enlarged by the second fan out, resulting in a colour band
coming out, consisting of the spectrum colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, and violet. There are no clear boundaries between the various colours, but
thousands of transitional areas. A rainbow is a perfect example of the principle of
light refraction in nature.

When white light, such as sunlight passes through a prism, it is

refracted in the colours of the rainbow.

Colour Temperature
Colour temperature relates to the fact that when an object is heated, it will emit a
colour that is directly related to the temperature of that object. The higher the
colour temperature, the more 'blue' the light, and the lower the colour temperature
the more 'red' the light. Colour temperature of light can be measured in degrees
Kelvin (K). Daylight has a colour temperature between 6000 and 7000 K. The
colour temperature of artificial light is much lower: approximately 3000 K. In
reality, colour temperatures range from 1900 K (candlelight) up to 25,000 K
(clear blue sky). Television is set to 6500 K, simulating 'standard daylight'.

Various light sources with different colour temperatures. Colour

temperature is expressed in degrees Kelvin.
The Human Eye
The eye tends to retain an image for about 80 milliseconds after it has
disappeared. Advantage is taken of this in television and cinematography, where a
series of still pictures (25 per second) create the illusion of a continuously moving
picture. Other characteristics of the human eye are that it is less sensitive to
colour detail than to black-and-white detail, and that the human eye does not
respond equally to all colours. The eye is most sensitive to the yellow/green
region, and less in the areas of red and (particularly) blue.
Evolution of the Scanning Process
The idea of "seeing by telegraph" engrossed many inventors
after the discovery in 1873 of variation in the electrical
conductivity of selenium when exposed to light. Selenium cells
were used in early television devices; the results were
unsatisfactory, however, chiefly because the response of
selenium to light-intensity variations was not rapid enough.
Moreover, until the development of the electron tube there was
no way of sufficiently amplifying the weak output signals. These
limitations precluded the success of a television method for
which Paul Nipkow in Germany received (1884) a patent.
His system employed a selenium photocell and a scanning disk;
it embodied the essential features of later successful devices. A
scanning disk has a single row of holes arranged so that they
spiral inward toward the center from a point near the edge. The
disk revolves in front of a light-sensitive plate on which a lens
forms an image; each hole passes across, or "scans," a narrow,
ring-shaped sector of the image. Thus the holes trace contiguous
concentric sectors, so that in one revolution of the disk the entire
image is scanned. When the light-sensitive cell is connected in
an electric circuit, the variations in light cause corresponding
fluctuations in the electric current. The image can be reproduced
by a receiver whose luminous area is scanned by a similar disk
synchronized with the disk of the transmitter.
Although selenium cells proved inadequate, the development of
the phototube made the mechanical disk-scanning method
practicable. In 1926, J. L. Baird in England and C. F. Jenkins in
the United States successfully demonstrated television systems
using mechanical scanning disks. While research remained at
producing pictures made up of 60 to 100 scanned lines,
mechanical systems were competitive. These were soon
superseded, however, by electronic scanning methods; a
television system employing electronic scanning was patented
by V. K. Zworykin in 1928. The 1930s saw the laboratory
perfection of television equipment that began to reach the market
in 1945 after World War II.
The modern scanning process, which is the essence of television
accomplishment, operates as do the eyes in reading a page of
printed matter, i.e., line by line. A complex circuit of horizontal
and vertical deflection coils controls this movement and causes
the electronic beam to scan the back of a mosaic of photoelectric
cells in a 525-line zigzag 30 times each second. (The 525-line
30-frame-per-second system is used in the United States, Japan,
and elsewhere; many other countries use similar but
incompatible systems.) Because of persistence of vision only
about 30 pictures need be transmitted each second to give the
effect of motion. The development of interlaced scanning results
in alternate lines being scanned each 1/60 sec, the remaining
lines being covered in the next 1/60 sec.

ELECTRON TUBE
 BASIC ELEMENTS IN ELECTRON TUBE

Electron tube, device consisting of a sealed enclosure in which

electrons flow between electrodes separated either by a vacuum (in
a vacuum tube) or by an ionized gas at low pressure (in a gas tube).
The two principal electrodes of an electron tube are the cathode and
the anode or plate. The simplest vacuum tube, the diode has only
those two electrodes. When the cathode is heated, it emits a cloud
of electrons, which are attracted by the positive electric polarity of
the anode and constitute the current through the tube. If the cathode
is charged positively with respect to the anode, the electrons are
drawn back to the cathode. However, the anode is not capable of
emitting electrons, so no current can exist; thus the diode acts as a
rectifier, i.e., it allows current to flow in only one direction. In the
vacuum triode a third electrode, the grid, usually made of a fine wire
mesh or similar material, is placed between the cathode and anode.
Small voltage fluctuations, or signals, applied to the grid can result in
large fluctuations in the current between the cathode and the anode.
Thus the triode can act as a signal amplifier, producing output
signals some 20 times greater than input. For even greater
amplification, additional grids can be added. Tetrodes, with 2 grids,
produce output signals about 600 times greater than input, and
pentodes, with 3 grids, 1,500 times. X-ray tubes maintain a high
voltage between a cathode and an anode. This enables electrons
from the cathode to strike the anode at velocities high enough to
produce X rays. A cathode-ray tube can produce electron beams
that strike a screen to produce pictures as in oscilloscopes and
video displays. Gas tubes behave similarly to vacuum tubes but are
designed to handle larger currents or to produce luminous
discharges. In some gas tubes the cathode is not designed as an
electron emitter; conduction occurs when a voltage sufficient to
ionize the gas exists between the anode and the cathode. In these
cases the ions and electrons formed from the gas molecules
constitute the current. Electron tubes have been replaced by solid-
state devices, such as transistors, for most applications. However
they are still widely used in high-power transmitters, some television
cameras, specialty audio equipment, and as oscilloscope and video
displays. A klystron is a special kind of vacuum tube that is a
powerful microwave
amplifier; it is used to generate signals for radar and television
stations
Colour picture tube

Cathode-ray tube (CRT)

Vacuum tube that produces images when its phosphorescent surface is
struck by electron beams. CRTs can be monochrome (using one electron
gun) or colour (typically using three electron guns to produce red,
green,and blue images that, when combined, render a multicolour image).
They come in a variety of display modes, including CGA (Colour Graphics
Adapter), VGA (Video Graphics Array), XGA (Extended Graphics Array),
and the high-definition SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array).

CRT

(Cathode Ray Tube) A vacuum tube used as a display screen in a

computer monitor or TV. The viewing end of the tube is coated with
phosphors, which emit light when struck by electrons.

In the past, CRT was a popular term for the entire computer display
terminal. Today, "monitor" is the correct term as computer displays have
shifted from CRTs to flat LCD panels Likewise, TV sets are widely
available in LCD and plasma flat panel technologies. However, the CRT
television is not over and done with. "Direct view" CRT sets come in wide
screen, HDTV models that are more affordable and offer quality equal to
or better than LCD and plasma TVs.

Electrons and Phosphors

The CRT works by heating a cathode which causes electrons to flow.
Accelerating and focusing anodes turn the electrons into a fine beam that
is directed to the phosphors by magnetic fields that are generated by
steering coils. The viewing end of a colour CRT tube is coated with red,
green and blue phosphor dots, and separate "electron guns" bombard
their respective colours a line at a time in a prescribed sequence The
resulting colour displayed on screen is determined by the intensity of the
electron beams as they strike the red, green and blue phosphors at that
same pixel location. See cathode and vacuum tube.
Backto the 1800s
The first oscilloscope tube was developed in 1897 by German scientist
Ferdinand Braun. Using a fluorescent screen and still known as a "Braun
tube" in Germany, his "cathode-ray oscilloscope" was used to display the
patterns of electronic signals. Although better known for inventing the
CRT, Braun shared the Nobel Prize in 1909 with Guglielmo Marconi for
wireless telegraphy.
COLOUR SYSTEM IN COLOUR
T.V.
VIDEO GRAPHIC COLOUR
PREPARATION OF COLOURS

The addition of colours

in the correct proportion
creates white; unlike
paint which darkens,
e.g., black is the
addition of Yellow,
Cyan and Magenta
pigments.
 Block diagram of a T.V.TUNER

This is a very simple blockdiagram over a tuner. The RF signal is

entering bandfilter before it enters the mixers. There are two mixers, one
for the UHF and one for the VHF. Two oscillators are connected to the two
mixers. One for the UHF and one for the VHF. The VHF oscillator is
divided into two band BL and BH.
The band can be selected with the input called BL, BU, BH. The frequency
of the oscillators is controlled by a voltage called
VT (tuning voltage).The output from the mixers is the IF signal.
The frequency of the IF differs from European standars to American
standard, the Eurorpean tuners has an IF of 38.9MHz and the American is
45.75 MHz. The input called ACG (Automatic Gain Control) controlls the
gain of the signal. This signal effect many part in the tuner so I haven't
drawn it in the block diagram. The input AFC (Automatic Frequence
Control) adjust the frequency of the oscillator a bit. This input is a
feedback from the VIDEO-IF circuit to obtain easy tuning. I have excluded
this also.

FRONT OF TV TUNER
Deflection Circuit

The deflection yoke's electromagnets are used to alter the path

of the electron beam in a CRT. The job of synchronising the
influence exerted by each of the yoke's two magnets, and so
controlling the directing of the beam towards specific parts of
the screen, is handled by some electronics known as the
deflection circuit.
The deflection circuit has to make complex adjustments to the
amount by which the electrons are deflected, depending upon
whereabouts on the screen the beam is being pointed. One
reason for this is that the distance the beam travels before it
hits a spot on the screen increases the further the spot is from
the screen's centre. The further the beam has to travel, the
longer the magnets have to maintain their influence on it; the
longer they maintain their influence, the further the beam is
pulled away from the centre. The deflection circuit has to make
allowance for this or the result would be heavy pincushion
distortion of the on-screen image.

There are other variables which also have to be catered for by

the deflection circuit, such as the varying time for which the
beam is influenced by the anode and the curvature of the inside
of the tube's faceplate, which affects the length of the beam's
path. These same factors also make necessary other dynamic
adjustments which can't be handled by the deflection circuit,
which is looked at in beam focusing.

Automatic Gain Control

An automatic gain control circuit includes a
first amplifier for receiving a video signal to
produce a first signal with a gain varied in
response to a control signal, a low-pass filter
for removing a colour component from the
first signals to produce a second signal, a
sync separator for separating synchronizing
pulses from the second signal to produce a
third signal, a delay circuit for delaying the
third signal for a given time to produce a
fourth signal, a clamper for clamping the
second signal upon a constant reference
voltage generated from a constant voltage
generator 26, a sample and hold circuit 26
for receiving the fourth signal and a fifth
signal to produce a sixth signal maintaining
for a given time a level of a back porch of the
fifth signal, a transconductance amplifier for
comparing the sixth signal with a constant
reference voltage to produce a difference
signal as a seventh signal, a capacitor for
integrating the seventh signals to produce a
direct current error voltage as an eighth
signal, and a second amplifier for receiving
the eighth signal to produce a ninth signal
applied to the first amplifier

T.V .POWER
SUPPLY