Further to what Dale writes, many cheap receivers demodulated R-Y and B-Y directly, reducing chroma bandwidth from that available with I and Q. However, the biggest differences in colorimetry between US and European receivers were probably attributable to changes in the phosphors used in color kinescopes in the quest for high brightness. A very orangy red phosphor was used in the 60s as I recall. Color temperature was screwed around with to increase brightness. Perhaps the PAL color matrixing at transmission was varied slightly from that used in NTSC, to accommodate later developed phosphors. I don't remember knowing it was. Modulating the kine screen grids can improve the dynamic range of color, improving pastel reproduction, but was not done because the American buying public bought based on brightness of the set in a strongly lit viewing environment. Al Limberg From: Dale Kelly To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 5:33 PM Subject: [opendtv] Re: News: CEA FORECASTS CONSUMER ELECTRONICS REVENUE WILL SURPASS $155 BILLION IN 2007 flyback1 wrote: >I started working in commercial broadcasting in 1967. I know what NTSC looks like in the studio. >I was in London in 1982 and 1984 and my firsthand observations were that at that time the PAL >television system displayed on sets in people's homes made better, more detailed, more deeply >saturated color pictures than I have ever seen in any NTSC studio Yes, I've also been there and done that and do agree that the video is superior. My point is that PAL does not define the number of scan lines nor the video bandwidth, which are responsible for much of the superior picture that we both observed. PAL only defines the 180 degree alternating color reference phase shift and the bandwidth available for the color signal, otherwise PAL and NTSC are identical. PAL design accomplished two things: 1. It resolved color phase error problems and also made the Hue control unnecessary. That was of more value in the early days but later broadcast and receiver equipment improvements minimized it's value. 2. PAL's two color subcarriers have equal bandwidth while NTSC has different bandwidths for it's two color subcarriers ( I and Q). The Q subcarrier transmits colors on the blue end of the visual spectrum where the human eye perceives far less detail than it does at the Red/green end. Therefore NTSC designers reduced the bandwidth available to the Q signal so as to its reduce cross talk into the video signal, but they did provide full bandwidth for the more detailed I signal . In reality, there should have been no noticeable difference between the colors produced by the two systems (other than the phase issues). However, along came the receiver manufactures, who in their zeal to minimize manufacturing costs, decided to filter both color signals at the lower Q bandwidth and thereby saved the cost of a delay line (maybe a dollar, if that). The receiver implementation is actually responsible for the superior color detail seen in the PAL system. I believe that the designers of PAL, who had the benefit of hind sight, correctly made the decision to transmit equal color bandwidth to circumvent the NTSC receiver manufacturing issue. -----Original Message----- From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of flyback1 Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11:04 AM To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [opendtv] Re: News: CEA FORECASTS CONSUMER ELECTRONICS REVENUE WILL SURPASS $155 BILLION IN 2007 And I hate to tell you that I was referring to the PAL system that went online in 1967 with 625 lines and ~8 mHz bandwidth, not the other later NTSC look-a-like. I started working in commercial broadcasting in 1967. I know what NTSC looks like in the studio. I was in London in 1982 and 1984 and my firsthand observations were that at that time the PAL television system displayed on sets in people's homes made better, more detailed, more deeply saturated color pictures than I have ever seen in any NTSC studio in the 40 years that have passed since I started working in television. All I am saying is that FINALLY 40 years later, all we can see here in the U.S. are HDTV pictures that are just a few percent better looking than what the British and Germans have had as standard fare in their homes since 1967. It has everything to do with the quality of pictures produced by PAL. If you don't think so, go somewhere that you can watch a PAL broadcast and the HDTV version of it side by side, and you might understand what I'm saying. There is NOT much picture quality difference between them. Dale Kelly wrote: flyback1 wrote: our wonderful, glorious 720p/1080i HDTV pictures have only a few percent more resolution and slightly better color than PAL TV has had since it's inception in 1967. I hate to keep beating this dead horse but this excellent quality has nothing to do with the PAL system. It is all about using 625 lines per frame and 8 Meg system bandwidth. Where the PAL based color transmission system uses 525 line 6Mhz video, the video quality is no better than in the U.S. Dale