Transmitting terminal apparatus for NTSC color television

DURING the last few years several laboratories in the United States have been carrying on investigations directed toward supplementing the present monochrome television service with transmissions in color. In most cases these investigations of color television systems have been confined to proposals which were expected to receive the wide public acceptance which has characterized monochrome television. The probable commercial success of a color television system may be estimated by noting the degree to which it satisfies certain important criteria. One of these resides in the fact that the system should be “compatible.” That is, it is desirable, that television broadcasts in color should be reproduced in monochrome by the 20,000,000 odd black-and-white receivers now in the hands of the public without the necessity of modifying these receivers in any way. Second, in addition to providing full color to a color receiver, the system should provide as high a degree of pictorial definition to both monochrome and color receivers as is now realized in the monochrome service. Third, as a purely technical matter, the radio-frequency spectrum space allocated to the television service should be utilized as efficiently as possible. The color television system which is now being field-tested by the National Television System Committee (NTSC)1, 2 represents the results of these investigations. This system satisfies these criteria in large measure.