TABLE OF CONTENTS Although there are many variations and implementation techniques, video signals are just a way of transferring visual information from one point to another. The information may be from a VCR, DVD player, a channel on the local broadcast, cable television, or satellite system, the internet or one of many other sources.
Invariably, the video information must be transferred from one device to another. It could be from a satellite set-top box or DVD player to a television. Or it could be from one chip to another inside the satellite set-top box or television. Although it seems simple, there are many different requirements, and therefore many different ways of doing it.
Until a few years ago, most video equipment was designed primarily for analog video. Digital video was confined to professional applications, such as video editing.
The average consumer now uses digital video every day thanks to continuing falling costs. This trend has led to the development of DVD players and recorders, digital set top boxes, digital television (DTV), portable video players and the ability to use the Internet for transferring video data.
Initially, video contained only gray-scale (also called black-and-white) information.
While color broadcasts were being developed, attempts were made to transmit color video using analog RGB (red, green, blue) data. However, this technique occupied 3d more bandwidth than the current gray-scale solution, so alternate methods were developed that led to using Y, R-Y and G-Y data to represent color information. A technique was...
