Considerations for digital encoding of the NTSC color television signal

Ernest K. Smith

Abstract: This report considers the minimum bit-rate required for trans­mission of NTSC video color standard when used for tele­conferencing. The smallest values are found for fixed cameras. The use of split screen images will increase the required bit­rate by a modest amount. Picture compression techniques considered here are essentially those developed by Bell Labs for use with Picturephone. How­ever, in addition, consideration is given to the possibilities afforded by image transformation (e.g., Hotelling, Fourier, or Hadamard) coupled with psychophysical aspects of vision in order to take account of both frame-to-frame redundancy and intra-frame redundancy. Problems of coding the audio portion separately from the video are also considered briefly. An annex to this report offers material from the CCIR.

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