Black and While programs on Color Tv

[Michael A. Terrell]

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Sigh. The NTSC was created for B&W television.

Acronyms are always changing, for example:

GSM (French for mobile system group) -> Global System for Mobiles.
DVD (Digital Video Disk) -> Digital Versatile Disk

NTSC is still 'National Television Standards Committee' which was
formed to chose the best available technology from various proposed
systems. The name never had anything to do with color except for the
ignorant to make fun of the US TV standards, but I don't expect you to
listen to the truth. 'never the same color' was never a real acronym.
If it were, PAL would be 'Pathetic Analretentive Liars'.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Ian Field wrote:

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote in message
news:slrnipospk.u4u.gsm@cable.mendelson.com...
Ian Field wrote:
Flicker is due to the 50Hz field rate, its only noticeable if you're used
to
60Hz field rate.

Which really is a design flaw, there was nothing that required it, and a
60Hz
rate screen is not really a problem with 50Hz lighting.

The need to be synced to the power line frequency was needed in the 1930's
when the 405 line system was developed due to arc lights being used for
studio lighting. By the time PAL was developed (early 1960's) arc lights
were long gone.

It was just done to be incompatible with the US.

You can get tablets for that.

Lobotomies work better, and only need to be done, once.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Bruce Esquibel wrote:

Michael A. Terrell <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

Neither. The color burst has to be turned off for B&W programming,
so the color killer circuit doesn't create artifacts. Stations used to
be very careful about this, but over the years some just don't bother
anymore.

Yeah but if they left the color burst on, it would present as a colored snow
all through the picture.

The OP is talking about a dominance of green, which I've seen too on
some B&W telecasts. I've also seen it there up to a commercial break, then
the next segment is normal.

I always figured it was something at the station rather than the print they
were using. Some peice of equipment in the chain that normalizes color or
something which needs to be turned off or bypassed for B&W shows.

That would depend on the color demodulator used in the TV. A green
tint was a common problem in early TVs when the color killer failed, or
the burst was left on.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

 

[Ian Field]

"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:ONSdnZZRI6i5TQHQnZ2dnUVZ_hWdnZ2d@earthlink.com...

Bruce Esquibel wrote:

Michael A. Terrell <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

Neither. The color burst has to be turned off for B&W programming,
so the color killer circuit doesn't create artifacts. Stations used to
be very careful about this, but over the years some just don't bother
anymore.

Yeah but if they left the color burst on, it would present as a colored
snow
all through the picture.

The OP is talking about a dominance of green, which I've seen too on
some B&W telecasts. I've also seen it there up to a commercial break,
then
the next segment is normal.

I always figured it was something at the station rather than the print
they
were using. Some peice of equipment in the chain that normalizes color or
something which needs to be turned off or bypassed for B&W shows.


That would depend on the color demodulator used in the TV. A green
tint was a common problem in early TVs when the color killer failed, or
the burst was left on.

For those who want to delve into the theory its worth remembering that to
conserve bandwidth, the green signal is not included in the chroma carrier -
its reconstituted by subtracting the sum of the red & blue signals from the
luma to obtain a value for green.

The single most important feature being that the luma signal was not
modified so it maintained compatibility with B&W sets.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

There was one for SECAM, but I can't remember what it was.

"Stupid Engineering Crap (Also Merde)"

 

[tlbs]

On Wednesday, April 6, 2011 2:39:35 PM UTC-6, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

NTSC is still 'National Television Standards Committee' which was
formed to chose the best available technology from various proposed
systems. The name never had anything to do with color except for the
ignorant to make fun of the US TV standards, but I don't expect you to
listen to the truth. 'never the same color' was never a real acronym.
If it were, PAL would be 'Pathetic Analretentive Liars'.

In joking, I always referred to PAL as, "Phase Always Loose" --
NTSC was, "Never True; Sh**ty Color".
There was one for SECAM, but I can't remember what it was.

Tom P.
near Albuquerque

 

On Apr 5, 11:11 am, John Robertson <s...@flippers.com> wrote:

William Sommerwerck wrote:
How come some of the old B&W programs on the "Oldies Channel"
(THIS-TV) are black and white, while others are tinted, usually black
and greenish white? Yes, the color programs are accurately colored,
so it's not that the TV colors are off, and some B&W programs are
actually correct. Is this in the film or is the tv transmitter wrong?

Filmed B&W programs are often transferred with a color camera or telecine
and transmitted as a color signal. The transfer equipment might not be set
up correctly.

It's also possible your TV's tracking is off, but you say some B&W programs
look okay, so that's not likely.

I occasionally watch this, and haven't noticed any unusual color casts in
B&W shows ("Bat Masterson", "Sea Hunt", etc).

I've noticed something similar on Blu-rays, both color and B&W. Scenes
appearing in the supplemental material have a different color balance or
cast, even though they're presumably derived from the same source. "North by
Northwest" and "Young Frankenstein" are good examples.

Also an artifact of NTSC - Never The Same Colour -

John :-#)#

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That was NTSC issue fixed in the '70s.

We were watching TCM last Sunday when they were running fragments
(because that's all that remains) of silent B/W movies some of which
were 'tinted' with the blueish or brownish look. They call it 'art'. I
call it crap but it was not a burst phase error. If there is no chroma
(the definition of B/W) the phase wouldn't mean a thing. The OP says
all other color is normal (though I have seen some TV's that were
dreadful when the owner thought it was great.) so perhaps he found one
of these tinted B/W films.

I can say the Samsung DLP and all the LCDs we have do excellent B/W.

G˛

 

On Apr 5, 2:17 pm, "Ian Field" <gangprobing.al...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net> wrote in message

news:infp1h$k9v$1@dont-email.me...

Also an artifact of NTSC -- Never The Same Colour

Not true. NTSC is neither inherently inaccurate or unstable.

The UK PAL (Phase Alternate Line) inverts the subcarrier phase on alternate
lines so phase distortion during transmission cancells itself out - NTSC
doesn't and is inherently prone to drift, hence it was dubbed; Never Twice
the Same Colour.

That NTSC hue issue was fixed in the '70s and never showed up again. I
know 'Hue' controls that were never touched because it wasn't a
problem. What DID drift was SCH phase but this does not show up as a
color hue error. It shows up as small horizontal shifts (up to 180 nS)
at edit points. Early Sony machines were bad on this score but later
models corrected it. The RCA TR-800 was hideous on this issue. Set it
at 12 noon and you better check it by 12:30 and likely need to adjust
it by 1 pm. RCA never fixed it but the engineers at Action Video in
Hollywood sorted it out. Set it on Jan 1 and you might want to check
it on the 4th of July. Ironically, the chip used to fix the RCA
machine was invented at RCA.

Aparently the US military incorporated a swinging phase error in their GPS
satelites to stop all and sundry using it without the decoding key - it was
a British engineer that cracked it using a technique based on PAL
technology.

G˛

 

On Apr 6, 6:45 am, "Ian Field" <gangprobing.al...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"isw" <i...@witzend.com> wrote in message

news:isw-4E35A7.20165205042011@[216.168.3.50]...





In article <KFLmp.2976$9h6.2...@newsfe02.ams2>,
"Ian Field" <gangprobing.al...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgee...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:infp1h$k9v$1@dont-email.me...
Also an artifact of NTSC -- Never The Same Colour

Not true. NTSC is neither inherently inaccurate or unstable.

The UK PAL (Phase Alternate Line) inverts the subcarrier phase on
alternate
lines so phase distortion during transmission cancells itself out - NTSC
doesn't and is inherently prone to drift, hence it was dubbed; Never
Twice
the Same Colour.

But they traded color drift for high-brightness ficker; not necessarily
a good choice, since the early color drift of NTSC, being due to
equipment instabilities, was soon fixed by better gear, while PAL's
flicker problem, having been designed in, persisted.

Flicker is due to the 50Hz field rate, its only noticeable if you're used to
60Hz field rate.

I agree you do get used to the 50 Hz flicker. I've worked with PAL in
Hollywood for 17 years.

G˛

 

[isw]

In article <W7_mp.24268$5t2.417@newsfe06.ams2>,
"Ian Field" <gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"isw" <isw@witzend.com> wrote in message
news:isw-4E35A7.20165205042011@[216.168.3.50]...
In article <KFLmp.2976$9h6.2210@newsfe02.ams2>,
"Ian Field" <gangprobing.alien@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"William Sommerwerck" <grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:infp1h$k9v$1@dont-email.me...
Also an artifact of NTSC -- Never The Same Colour

Not true. NTSC is neither inherently inaccurate or unstable.


The UK PAL (Phase Alternate Line) inverts the subcarrier phase on
alternate
lines so phase distortion during transmission cancells itself out - NTSC
doesn't and is inherently prone to drift, hence it was dubbed; Never
Twice
the Same Colour.

But they traded color drift for high-brightness ficker; not necessarily
a good choice, since the early color drift of NTSC, being due to
equipment instabilities, was soon fixed by better gear, while PAL's
flicker problem, having been designed in, persisted.


Flicker is due to the 50Hz field rate, its only noticeable if you're used to
60Hz field rate.

That's not what I was talking about.

PAL's high-brightness flicker problem is caused by a combination of it's
very low interlace rate and the human eye's sensitivity to periodic
variations in light intensity, especially at high levels of brightness.

The actual interlace rate (the rate at which a specific "pixel" repeats
with the exact same amplitude and phase) is, for NTSC, half the frame
rate -- say, a tad below 15 Hz. (Don't forget that the color subcarrier
is also interlaced). Due to it's extra phase alternation (the "P" of
"PAL"), the actual interlace rate for PAL is *one quarter* of its frame
rate, or 6.25 Hz.

NTSC's flicker rate is high enough that it's just not very noticeable,
while PAL's is well below the flicker fusion rate, and is easily
noticeable.

After a while, "high-end" PAL sets were offered which did not exhibit
the flicker problem, but (unlike NTSC's hue problem) it was not
eliminated so much as obscured by considerably more complex (and
expensive) signal processing.

Isaac

 

[isw]

In article
<9905863f-b7fd-4011-99b4-34614b2aa9e9@i14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
stratus46@yahoo.com wrote:

On Apr 5, 11:11 am, John Robertson <s...@flippers.com> wrote:
William Sommerwerck wrote:
How come some of the old B&W programs on the "Oldies Channel"
(THIS-TV) are black and white, while others are tinted, usually black
and greenish white? Yes, the color programs are accurately colored,
so it's not that the TV colors are off, and some B&W programs are
actually correct. Is this in the film or is the tv transmitter wrong?

Filmed B&W programs are often transferred with a color camera or telecine
and transmitted as a color signal. The transfer equipment might not be
set
up correctly.

It's also possible your TV's tracking is off, but you say some B&W
programs
look okay, so that's not likely.

I occasionally watch this, and haven't noticed any unusual color casts in
B&W shows ("Bat Masterson", "Sea Hunt", etc).

I've noticed something similar on Blu-rays, both color and B&W. Scenes
appearing in the supplemental material have a different color balance or
cast, even though they're presumably derived from the same source. "North
by
Northwest" and "Young Frankenstein" are good examples.

Also an artifact of NTSC - Never The Same Colour -

I don't think so. For DVDs, "NTSC" or "PAL" does not exist (or, does not
*need* to exist), at any point in the signal chain prior to the final
video output portion of the DVD player, and whatever performance it has,
won't vary from one part of a disk to another.

The effect you speak of is most likely due to the fact that the
supplemental stuff just didn't get the same degree of attention when
color correcting the film sources.

Isaac

 

[William Sommerwerck]

We were watching TCM last Sunday when they were running
fragments (because that's all that remains) of silent B/W movies...

Although about 90% of all silent films have been lost, many exist in full
versions. (Believe it or not, 50% of all sound films are believed to be
lost. Most of these were probably from small studios.)

some of which were "tinted" with the bluish or brownish look.

It's called "sepia". Tinting was common, used to establish mood. Kodak made
fine-grained release films with a tinted base. Tinting ended with the
introduction of sound.

They call it 'art'. I call it crap...

It was standard when color was not available. Think about the fact that the
film itself isn't "realistic".

...but it was not a burst phase error. If there is no chroma (the
definition of B/W) the phase wouldn't mean a thing.

This is true in terms of the way NTSC and PAL are designed/defined, but I'm
not sure it's true in practice.

The OP says all other color is normal (though I have seen some
TVs that were dreadful when the owner thought it was great), so
perhaps he found one of these tinted B/W films.

Yes, of course. "Bat Masterson" was printed on sepia stock, "Sea Hunt" was
printed on blue, etc, etc, etc.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

That NTSC hue issue was fixed in the '70s and never showed
up again. I know Hue controls that were never touched
because it wasn't a problem.

I've owned color TVs since 1974, and I simply don't remember adjusting the
hue control (incorrectly called tint on many sets).

It should be pointed out that a "true" phase error is a differential (that
is, non-minimum) phase error. Readjusting the hue control to get the
fleshtones correct pushes other colors in the wrong direction.

I've noticed over the years that people tend to adjust the hue control for
slightly greenish flesh tones. Don't know why.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

It should be pointed out that a "true" phase error is
a differential (that is, non-minimum) phase error.

Whoops. That should have been non-linear. So easy to get confused...