Guide to Digital Television
Written by Richard Brice, Miranda Technologies Managing Director (Europe), Newnes Guide to Digital Television is written for those who are faced with the need to comprehend the novel world of digital television technology.
'Not since the nineteen-sixties - and the advent of colour television in Europe - have managers, technicians and engineers had to learn so much, so quickly; whether they work in the development laboratory, the studio or in the repair-shop. This book aims to cover the important principles which lie at the heart of the new digital TV services. I have tried to convey the broad architecture of the various systems and how these offer the functionalities they do. By concentrating on important principles, rather than presenting reams of detail, I hope the important ideas presented will "stick in the mind" more obstinately than if I had adopted the opposite approach. I am also aware that there exists a new generation of engineers "in the wings", as it were, to whom the world of digital television will be the only television they will know. For them, I have included a chapter on the important foundations of television as they have evolved in the first sixty years of this interesting and world-changing technology.But here's a warning; the technology's not going to slow down! Today's television is just that - for today. The television of next year will be different. For that reason, I've included the last chapter which outlines some of the current developments in MPEG-IV coding which will set the agenda of television in the new century. In this way I hope this book will serve you today and for some years to come.'
Richard has worked as a
senior designer in several of Britain's top broadcast companies and was also
responsible for part of the development of AVESCO's first product in the medical
imaging field. Before joining Oxtel, Richard worked for Pro-Bel as Product
Champion for a new range of products called Freeway. For this work he was cited
in Post Update magazine as one of the 12 "Disciples of TV Design".
If you would like a copy of Newnes Guide to Digital Television, copies
are available from Miranda plc for £24.99. Send mail to: sales@oxtel.com
Newnes Guide to Digital Television Preface Chapter 1 - Introduction Digital television Why digital? More channels Wide screen pictures "Cinema" sound Associated services Conditional access Transmission techniques Receiver technology The future .... Chapter 2 - Foundations of television A brief history of television The introduction of colour The physics of light The physiology of the eye Psychology of vision - colour perception Metamerism - the great colour swindle Persistence of vision The physics of sound Fourier Transients Physiology of the ear Psychology of hearing Masking Temporal masking Film and television Television Television signals H sync and V sync Colour television NTSC and PAL colour systems SECAM colour system Shadowmask tube Vestigial sideband modulation Audio for television NICAM 728 digital stereo sound Recording television signals Colour under Audio tracks Timecode Longitudinal Timecode Vertical Interval Timecode PAL and NTSC User bits Teletext Analogue High Definition Television (HDTV) MAC and PALplus Sony 1125/60 & 1250/50 systems Chapter 3 - Digital video and audio coding Digital fundamentals Sampling theory and conversion Theory The mechanism of sampling Aliasing Quantization Digital to analogue conversion Jitter Aperture effect Dither Digital video interfaces Video Timing Reference Signals (TRS) Clock signal Filter templates Parallel interface Serial interface HDTV serial interface Digital audio interfaces AES/EBU interface SPDIF interface Data Practical digital audio interface TOSlink optical interface Unbalanced (75 ohm) AES interface MADI multi-channel interface Data format Scrambling and synchronisation Electrical format Fibre optic format Embedded audio in video interface Chapter 4 - Digital signal processing Introduction Digital manipulation Digital filtering Digital image processing Point operations - colour correction Window operations Fourier transform Phase Windowing 2-D Fourier transforms Chapter 5 - Video data compression Basic concepts Entropy, redundancy and artefacts Lossless compression De-correlation Lossless DPCM and Lossy DPCM Frame differences and motion compensation Fourier transform based methods of compression Transform coding A practical mix JPEG Motion JPEG (MJPEG) MPEG Levels and Profiles MP@ML ML@4:2:2P Frames or fields MPEG coding MPEG coding hardware Statistical multiplexing Chapter 6 - Audio data compression Compression based on logarithmic representation NICAM 728 Psychoacoustic masking systems Sub-band coding MPEG layers 1 (PASC) MPEG layer 2 (MUSICAM) MPEG layer 3 Dolby AC-3 Chapter 7 - Digital audio production Digital line-up levels and metering The VU meter The PPM meter Opto-electronic level indication Standard operating levels and line-up tones Digital line-up Switching and combining audio signals Routing switchers Digital audio consoles Sound mixer architecture Mixer automation Digital tape machines Digital 2-track recording Digital multi-tracks Digital audio workstations Audio file formats Surround-sound formats Dolby Surround Dolby Digital (AC-3) Rematrixing Dynamic range compression MPEG-2 extension to multi-channel Pro-logic compatibility IEC 61937 interface Dynamic range compression Multilingual support Editing MPEG-Layer 2 audio Chapter 8 - Digital video production Switching and combining video signals Digital video effects What is a video transition? The cut The dissolve The fade Wipes Split-screens Keys Posterize Chroma-key Off-line editing Computer video standards Vector and bitmap graphics - what's the difference? Graphic file formats CGI and animation Types of animation Software 2D Compositing Morphing and warping Rotorscoping 3D graphics and animation Matrices Imaging Light Ray tracing Hard disk technology Hard drive interface standards IDE, EIDE SCSI Fibre channel Firewire RAID Media server Open Media Framework Chapter 9 - The MPEG multiplex A "packetised" interface Deriving the MPEG-2 multiplex The PES packet format Transport stream Packet synchronisation Packet identification (PID) PAT and PMT Error handling The adaption header System and program clock references Presentation timestamps Splicing bitstreams CAT DVB Service information Conditional access SimulCrypt and Multicrypt Channel coding Scrambling Reed-Solomon encoding Convolutional interleaving Electrical interfaces for MPEG-2 multiplex Synchronous Parallel Interface Synchronous Serial Interface Asynchronous Serial Interface Chapter 10 - Broadcasting digital video Digital modulation Quadrature amplitude modulation Modulation for satellite and cable systems Establishing reference phase Convolutional or Viterbi coding Terrestrial transmission COFDM Practical COFDM Adding a guard period The advantages of COFDM 8-VSB modulation Interoperability Interoperability with ATM Chapter 11 - Consumer digital technology Receiver technology Current set-top box design Circuit descriptions Set-top box - future trends Digital tuner Incorporation of hard-disk drives D-VHS DVD General servicing issues Static and safety Golden rules Equipment DVD faults PSU faults Chapter 12 - The future Leaning forward and leaning back Hypertext and hypermedia HTML documents MPEG-4 - object oriented television coding Objects and scenes The language VRML MPEG-4 audio Structured audio SAOL TTS systems Audio scenes MPEG-7 and Metadata
About me .....
Address all mail to richard@richardbrice.net