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A quick presentation on video signals, concepts, connectors and modern solutions, given at my workplace for fun.
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Video: What you never thought you might want
to know
… and some stuff you might actually care about
What shall we talk about?
A little theoryThe video signalPicture elementsColorspaces
… and some practiceVideo connectorsInterlaced vs progressiveAnalog vs digital
In theory
In the beginning was the cathode ray tube…
What’s a video signal?
A stream of images (“frames”) played at a constant rate
The frame rate must be high enough to fool the human brain into thinking that the motion is continuous (at least 15 frames per second)
... and then?
Woah, woah, hold up!What’s are these
“images” you keep mentioning?
An image is a matrix of picture elements, with a specific height and width
Each of these elements (or “pixels”) has a specific color
… and then?
Since the number of rows and columns is fixed, this is an approximation of the actual image
The more pixels you fit into a given space, the more accurate the image is and the higher the resolution
… and then?
So a pixel approximates a small sample of the image
What is a pixel?That depends. The
value of a pixel depends on the context, but in all cases it represents a color.
… and theeeen?
A color is a vector, and it only has meaning given the correct vector space (or rather, colorspace)
The common ones are…RGB (or sRGB)YUV/YPbPr/YCbCrCMYKHSB/HSV/HSLxvYCC
and then and then and then and then
In practice
Now comes the stuff you may care about
Video connectors
Legacy connections use analog video signaling:Pixels are sent over the
wire using an analog encoding scheme
Horizontal and vertical sync lines signal when a line or frame (respectively) begins and ends
There are dramatic differences in image quality between systems
Analog video connections
Composite video:• 1x RCA connector• Multiplexed signal• Crappy quality
S-Video:• 4-pin mini-DIN• Separate chroma/lumen signals• Passable quality
SCART:• Composite, Y/C or RGB video• Carries audio• Bidirectional
Interlaced video
What’s interlaced video?
Interlacing was invented to get better image quality out of CRTs with no cost
The technology is completely obsolete and is one of the worst holdovers from the analog era
Modern displays require deinterlacing or a progressive signal
Modern analog connections
Component video:• YPbPr colorspace• Progressive signal• Usually 3x RCA connectors
VGA connector:• D-sub 15 connector• Progressive signal• RGB + H/V sync• DDC data signal
A brave new world
Modern video signals are typically transmitted digitally
The core concepts have not changed (pixels, colorspaces)…
… but rather improved and expanded upon:New colorspace (xvYCC)Consumer Electronics
Control (CEC)24-bit, 192KHz audio
Questions?
(A)bort (R)etry (I)gnore?
To the infinity, and beyond!
There’s plenty to cover:Display technologiesMeasurements and calibrationDigital video artifactsCompression codecs
What would you like to hear [email protected]