FRAME 00000 • 00:00:00 • NTSC • LINE 240/525
🔌 COMPOSITE (CVBS) — Yellow RCA
▶ SHOW SIGNAL REFERENCE

◈ NTSC (525-line, 59.94 Hz)

Used in North America, Japan, parts of South America.

  • Subcarrier: 3.579545 MHz
  • QAM encoding: I & Q channels
  • Phase-sensitive — hue can shift ("Never The Same Color")
  • Colorburst: ~8–10 cycles of inverted subcarrier reference

◈ PAL (625-line, 50 Hz)

Used in most of Europe, Australia, parts of Asia & Africa.

  • Subcarrier: 4.43361875 MHz
  • Phase Alternating Line — V-component inverted every other line
  • Cancels phase errors automatically (no tint control needed)
  • Better color accuracy than NTSC, slightly lower vertical resolution perception at 50 Hz

◈ SECAM (625-line, 50 Hz)

Used in France, Russia, parts of Africa & Middle East.

  • FM-encoded chroma — Db at 4.25 MHz, Dr at 4.406 MHz
  • Color transmitted sequentially, one component per line
  • No colorburst — phase is irrelevant
  • "SECAM fire" artifacts on sharp color transitions

◈ CROSS-COLOR ARTIFACTS

Because luma and chroma share bandwidth:

  • Cross-Color: High-freq luma → false color (rainbow on stripes)
  • Cross-Luminance: Chroma → visible dot crawl pattern
  • S-Video eliminates these by keeping Y/C separate
  • Comb filters reduce artifacts by comparing adjacent lines

◈ VHS & RECORDING FORMATS

Different recording formats degrade the signal in unique ways:

  • VHS: Color-under at ~629 kHz, ~3 MHz luma BW, ~500 kHz chroma
  • LaserDisc: True composite on FM carrier, higher quality
  • U-matic: Professional color-under, better than VHS
  • D-2: Digital composite at 4fsc sampling

◈ CONNECTORS

Composite video uses various physical connections:

  • RCA (yellow): Consumer standard, 75Ω unbalanced
  • BNC: Professional broadcast, bayonet lock
  • DIN: European home computers (C64, etc.)
  • Cable: 75Ω coaxial, 52–69 pF/m capacitance