RGB
RGB systems carry the totality of the picture information as independent Red,
Green, and Blue signals. Television is an additive color system, where all three
components add to produce white. Because the luminance (or detail) information
is carried partially in each of the RGB channels, all three must be carried at full
bandwidth in order to faithfully reproduce an image.
ScH Phase
Used in composite systems, ScH Phase measures the relative phase between the
leading edge of sync on line 1 of field 1 and a continuous subcarrier sinewave.
Due to the arithmetic details of both PAL and NTSC, this relationship is not the
same at the beginning of each frame. In PAL, the pattern repeats every 4 frames
(8 fields) which is also known as the Bruch Blanking sequence. In NTSC, the
repeat is every 2 frames (4 fields.) This creates enormous headaches in editing
systems and the system timing of analog composite facilities.
SDI
Serial Digital Interface. This term refers to inputs and outputs of devices that
support serial digital component video. This generally means standard definition
at 270 Mb/s. The use of “HD-SDI” is beginning to appear to indicate High
Definition Serial Digital Video at 1.485 Gb/s.
SMPTE
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers is a professional organi-
zation which has done tremendous work in setting standards for both the film
and television industries. The term “SMPTE’” is also shorthand for one particular
component video format - luminance and color difference.
Single mode
A Single mode (or monomode) optical fiber carries an optical signal on a very
small diameter (9 micron) core surrounded with cladding. The small diameter
means that no internally reflected lightwaves will be propagated. Thus only the
original “mode” of the signal passes down the fiber. A single mode fiber used in an
optical SDI system can carry a signal for up to 20 kilometers. Single mode fibers
require particular care in their installation due to the extremely small optical
aperture that they present at splice and connection points.
See also Multi-mode.
TBC
A Time Base Corrector is a system to reduce the Time Base Error in a signal to
acceptable levels. It accomplishes this by using a FIFO (First In, First Out)
memory. The incoming video is written into the memory using its own jittery
timing. This operation is closely associated with the actual digitization of the
analog signal because the varying position of the sync timing must be mimicked
by the sampling function of the analog to digital converter. A second timing
system, gen-locked to a stable reference, is used to read the video back out of the
memory. The memory acts as a dynamically adjusting delay to smooth out the
imperfections in the original signal’s timing. Very often a TBC will also function
as a Frame Synchronizer.
See also: Frame Sync.
BrightEye-16
BrightEye 24 SDI to Analog Converter and Disembedder
