EE4414 Multimedia Communication System II

Homework 1 Solution (Analog Monochrome TV Systems), Yao Wang

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1. Describe the difference between progressive and interlaced scan. What is the advantage and
disadvantage of interlaced scan compared with progressive scan, when the line rate per second
(lines/s) is the same?

With progressive scan, all lines are scanned within each frame. With interlaced scan, alternating
lines (say even lines) are scanned in one field, and the rest (odd lines) are scanned in another field.
The two fields together include all lines in one frame. When the line rate per second is the same,
progressive scan has half the temporal sampling rate as the interlaced scan, but twice the vertical
sampling rate (lines per frame). Thus interlaced scan can render fast moving objects better, but the
progressive scan can render vertical details better. But when an object is moving very fast, the eye is
not very sensitive to spatial details, and when the object is not moving, the two fields merge into
one frame. Therefore, overall, interlaced scan enables faster temporal sampling, without sacrificing
too much in perceived spatial resolution.

2. What are some of the factors that determine the minimal required frame rate (frames/s) and line
number (lines/frame) for the eye not to see separate frames or lines?

The minimal frame rate and line number depend on viewing distance, display brightness, as well as
the content of the displayed image. The minimal rate/number increases with display brightness, as
the viewer gets closer to the screen, and when the displayed image has higher frequency content.
These are some reasons why a computer monitor has to have a much higher frame rate and higher
spatial resolution, compared to a TV monitor.

3. Consider a raster video converted from a 3D video signal with 10 frames/second, 100 x 100
pixels/frame. What is the maximum possible temporal frequency (Hz or cycles/s)?

There will be 100*100*10 pixels per second in the raster video. The maximum number of cycles
per second is half of this number, or 50 KHz. This is the maximum possible temporal frequency.
Considering that the camera will blur the signal, this number may be reduced by a Kell factor of
0.7, becoming 35 KHz.

Alternatively, if you follow the way we calculated the maximum frequency for the NTSC video, the
maximum vertical frequency is 100/2=50 cycles/picture-height. The maximum horizontal frequency
is 50 * 100/100= 50 cycles/picture-width. Each line takes 1/(100*10)=1 ms. The maximum
horizontal frequency is 50 / (1 ms) = 50 KHz. Considering the Kell factor of 0.7, this becomes 35
KHz.

4. What is the bandwidth of the NTSC video?

4.2 MHz. (there are 483*4/3 pixels within each line period of 53 s, so that maximum number of
cycles per second is 483*4/3/2/53*10^{6}*K=4.2 MHz. See lecture note)
5. How is audio multiplexed with video into a single signal? What is the carrier frequency used for
audio?
Audio is multiplexed onto a carrier frequency of 4.5 MHz using frequency modulation. The 4.5
MHz is chosen to be above the maximum frequency of the video, 4.2 MHz, so that there will be no
interference between audio and video.

6. Which modulation technique is used for modulating a TV signal to a carrier frequency? What is
the total bandwidth allocated for a TV channel? Illustrate with a figure the spectrum of a
modulated TV channel.

VSB-C (vestigial sideband modulation with carrier). The total bandwidth of a TV signal is 6 MHz.
The figure below illustrates the spectrum of a typical modulated TV channel. Note that the area
with stripes indicates the modulated chrominance components. In a monochrome TV, this part
simply consists of the monochrome video signal.

7. Describe the difference between DSB-SC, SSB-SC, and VSB-SC. Illustrate with spectrum plots
in the frequency domain.

With DBS-SC, both upper sideband (USB) and lower sideband (LSB) are transmitted, thus
requiring twice the bandwidth of the original signal. With SSB-SC, either USB or LSB is
transmitted. To obtain USB or LSB, a lowpass or highpass filter with very sharp transition band is
needed, which is difficult to implement, especially with analog circuitry. With VSB-SC, a VSB
shaping filter with gradual transition band can be used, thus the transmitted signal contains the USB
and some portion of LSB. A corresponding equalizing filter has to be used at the receiver to cancel
out the attenuation of USB and LSB, caused by the shaping filter.
See the following figure (From Lathi, Fig. 4.15)
8. Draw block diagrams for modulation and demodulation using VSB-SC. And explain briefly the
function of each block in the diagrams.

For modulation (see “Transmitter” in the figure), the signal m(t) is multiplied with the carrier signal
(2 cos w_c t), following by a shaping filter (H_i). For demodulation (see “Receiver” in the figure),
the received signal is again multiplied with the same carrier signal. Then a equalizing filter H_o is
applied, which cancels out any modification by H_i on the original signal in the base band.
Specifically, the filter response of H_i and H_o has to satisfy the relation:
9. With amplitude modulation (e.g. DSB), one can either suppress the carrier or transmit the
carrier (leading to DSB-SC and DSB-C, respectively). Discuss the difference in demodulation
for DSB-SC and DSB-C. What are the major advantage and disadvantages of each?

With DSB-SC, the receiver must be able to generate a carrier signal that is in sync with the carrier
signal used at the modulator, with exactly the same frequency and phase. Slight shifts in frequency
or phase will lead to noticeable errors in demodulated signal. With DBS-C, demodulation can be
done with an envelop detector, which is essentially a lowpass filter, and does not require the
generation of a carrier signal. Thus the demodulation is simpler with DSB-C. But DSB-C requires
the transmission of the carrier signal, which requires a sizable amount of transmission power. DSB-
C (or SSB-C, VSB-C) is more suitable for broadcast applications, where receivers much be
inexpensive, but the transmitter can afford to be more expansive and can be mounted in higher
towers.