Differential phase

Differential phase is a kind of linearity distortion which affects the color hue in TV broadcasting.

Composite color video signal

Composite color video signal (CCVS) consists of three terms:

Monochrome (luminance) signal
Auxiliary signals (sync pulse and blanking signals )
Color signal, which is actually a subcarrier modulated by chroma information

The first two terms are usually called composite video signal (CVS)

The modulation technique of the color subcarrier is quadrature amplitude modulation (QUAM ) both in PAL and NTSC systems. The amplitude of the color signal represents the saturation of the color and the phase lag of the color signal with respect to a certain reference which is called colorburst represents the hue; i.e., each phase lag is assigned for a different color hue. So, in order to reproduce the original color in the receiver, the phase difference between the colorburst and the color signal must be kept constant throughout the broadcasting.

The colorburst

The colorburst is a 10 period signal of color carrier (3.58 MHz in System M and 4.43 MHz in System B and System G). It is superimposed on the back porch of the CVS. The peak to peak amplitude is about 300 mV. That means that, when the color signal has a low luminance, its DC component is comparable to that of the colorburst. All dark colors have more or less the same DC component as the colorburst. But light colors have a higher luminance and hence a higher DC component.

Differential phase distortion

During broadcasting, the inherent non lineraity in electronic devices may cause a level dependent phase shift.^[1] Differential phase distortion (DP or dP) is the shift of color signal phase with respect to the colorburst phase. Since DC levels of the light colors and the colorburst are different, this type of distortion is more pronounced in lighter scenes. Especially a slight change in skin color may be irritating to the viewers. (too yellow or too red skin color depending on whether shift is positive or negative)

PAL system

To solve the problem of differential phase distortion in PAL system, the polarity of both the colorburst and the color signal are reversed in each consecutive frame.^[2]^[3] So in one frame the phase of the colorburst leads and in the second frame the phase of the color signal leads. However, if there is DP distortion in the system, the shift caused by DP has always the same polarity, thus the overall shift is more than the original in one frame and less than the original in the second frame by the same amount. The average of two frames yields the original phase difference and thus the color.

The mathematics involved is as follows:

Let $\theta$ be the phase difference of the color signal with respect to colorburst and $\beta$ be the extra shift introduced by DP.

The original signal is

${\mbox{f(t)}}=sin(\omega t+\theta )$

If there is a DP distortion, the received signal for the first frame is

${\mbox{f(t)}}=sin(\omega t+\theta +\beta )$

In the second frame (after multiplying by -1)

${\mbox{f(t)}}=sin(\omega t+\theta -\beta )$

The average is

{\mbox{f(t)}}={\frac {1}{2}}(\sin(\omega t+\theta +\beta )+\sin(\omega t+\theta -\beta ))=\sin(\omega t+\theta )\cdot \cos(\beta )

So while the effect of $\beta$ diminishes on the color hue, the amplitude of the color signal is reduced by $cos(\beta )$ which means that color saturation is reduced.

Analog television broadcasting topics
Systems	180-line 405-line ( System A ) 441-line 525-line ( System J , System M ) 625-line ( System B , System C , System D , System G , System H , System I , System K , System L , System N ) 819-line ( System E , System F )
Color systems	NTSC PAL PAL-M PAL-S PALplus SECAM
Video	Back porch and front porch Black level Blanking level Chrominance Chrominance subcarrier Colorburst Color killer Color TV Composite video Frame (video) Horizontal scan rate Horizontal blanking interval Luma Nominal analogue blanking Overscan Raster scan Safe area Television lines Vertical blanking interval White clipper
Sound	Multichannel television sound NICAM Sound-in-Syncs Zweikanalton
Modulation	Frequency modulation Quadrature amplitude modulation Vestigial sideband modulation (VSB)
Transmission	Amplifiers Antenna (radio) Broadcast transmitter/Transmitter station Cavity amplifier Differential gain Differential phase Diplexer Dipole antenna Dummy load Frequency mixer Intercarrier method Intermediate frequency Output power of an analog TV transmitter Pre-emphasis Residual carrier Split sound system Superheterodyne transmitter Television receive-only Direct-broadcast satellite television Television transmitter Terrestrial television Transposer
Frequencies & Bands	Frequency offset Microwave transmission Television channel frequencies UHF VHF
Propagation	Beam tilt Distortion Earth bulge Field strength in free space Knife-edge effect Noise (electronics) Null fill Path loss Radiation pattern Skew Television interference
Testing	Distortionmeter Field strength meter Vectorscope VIT signals Zero reference pulse
Artifacts	Dot crawl Ghosting Hanover bars Sparklies

References

↑ Television Measurements: NTSC Systems. Techtronix
↑ Gordon J.King:Beginner’s Guide to color television, Newness technical, London, 1978; ISBN 0-408-00101-1, p 65-70
↑ V.F.Samoylov-B.P.Khromoy: Television (trans:Boris Kuznetsov) Mir Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p.375

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