The Influence of Color Burst Variations on the Design and Performance of Color Receivers

The NTSC color television system works: millions of color receivers are operating, almost all of which produce colored pictures. The system does not work perfectly: the inidustry receives complairits of poor and unstable color reproduction, and a massive program of corrective actions is being undertaken by the broadcasting half of the industry. It is expected that the existing problems will be minimized in a few years so that the average quality of broadcast signals will improve greatly. The point will be reached where the great nmajority of transmitted signals will liave quite similar colorimetry, burst phase-to-fleshtone angle, burst/chroma/video ampli. tude ratios, and sychronization waveforms. Will all color receivers then produce sinmilar pictures? It appears that they may not. Several reasons wh1y not will be presented here.