Digital Video Fundamentals

History

• 1839: Daguerreotype Cameras

• 1893: Telephone Audio Broadcasting (Puskas)
• 1895: Wireless Communication (Marconi, Popov)
• 1895: Film Presentation (Lumiere Brothers)
• 1919: Radio Broadcasting (Holland, Canada)
• 1934: US establishes FCC
• 1935: TV Broadcasting (Germany, Britain)
• 1941: US B&W TV
 History (Cont…)

• 1951: Videotape Recorder (Bing Crosby Enterprises)

• 1953: US Color TV (NTSC)
• 1963: Geostationary Satellites
• 1985: FCC establishes ATSC - standard by 1993?
• 1989: Analog HDTV Broadcasting (Japan)
• 1993: VCD (Video on CD Based on MPEG-1)
• 1994: Digital Video Broadcast & CD Based on MPEG-2
• 1996: ATSC Standard Adopted
• 1999: Internet/Web Video Broadcasting (MPEG-4)
• 2001: Wireless Internet Video Communications
• 2003: Digital TV Broadcast (Japan)
• 2005: HDTV, Youtube
 Light
• Light exhibits some properties that make it appear to
consist of particles; at other times, it behaves like a wave.
• Light is electromagnetic energy that radiates from a
source of energy (or a source of light) in the form of
waves
• Visible light is in the 400 nm – 700 nm range of
electromagnetic spectrum
 Intensity of Light
• The strength of the radiation from a light source is measured using the
unit called the candela, or candle power. The total energy from the
light source, including heat and all electromagnetic radiation, is called
radiance and is usually expressed in watts.

• Luminance is a measure of the light strength that is actually perceived

by the human eye. Radiance is a measure of the total output of the
source; luminance measures just the portion that is perceived.

• Brightness is a subjective, psychological measure of perceived

intensity. Brightness is practically impossible to measure objectively. It
is relative. For example, a burning candle in a darkened room will
appear bright to the viewer; it will not appear bright in full sunshine.

• The strength of light diminishes in inverse square proportion to its

distance from its source. This effect accounts for the need for high
intensity projectors for showing multimedia productions on a screen to
an audience.
 Basics of Color
• Color is the sensation registered when light of different wavelengths
is perceived by the brain.
• Observed in objects that reflect or emit certain wavelengths of light.
• Can create the sensation of any color by mixing appropriate amounts
of the three primary colors — red, green, and blue.
• Can create colors on computer monitors using the emission of three
wavelengths of light in appropriate combinations.
• Hue distinguishes among colors such as red, green, and yellow.
• Saturation refers to how far color is from a gray of equal intensity.
• Lightness embodies the achromatic notion of perceived intensity of a
reflecting object.
• Brightness is used instead of lightness for a self-luminous object
such as CRT.
Hue, Saturation and Brightness/Luminance

H
dominant
wavelength

S
purity
% white

B/L
luminance
 Color Models in Images
• RGB color model: each displayed color is described by three
independent parameters- the luminance of each of the three primary
colors (0 – 1) - primary used in color CRT monitors
• Employs a Cartesian coordinate system. The RGB primaries are
additive; which means that individual contributions of each primary
are added for the creation of a new color.
Video Communication/Broadcast System

Transmitter

Receiver
Video
Camera Video
Display

Goals:
1. Efficient use of bandwidth
2. High viewer perception of quality
 Camera Operation
Color Camera
Filters Tubes
Zoom
R Luminance
Lens

Encoder
Beam Gray Comp
Splitter G
Chrominance
B
Color Comp

• Camera has 1, 2, or 3 tubes for sampling

• More tubes (CCD’s) and better lens produce better pictures
• Video composed of luminance and chrominance signals
• Composite video combines luminance and chrominance
• Component video sends signals separately
 Video Display Scanning
Amplitude Cathode

Time
• Three guns (RGB) energize phosphors
– Varying energy changes perceived intensity
– Different energies to different phosphors produces different colors
– Phosphors decay so you have to refresh
• Different technologies
– Shadow mask (delta-gun dot mask)
– PIL slot mask
– Single-gun (3 beams) aperture-grille (Trinitron)
 Scanning Video
• Video is obtained via raster scanning, which transforms a
3-D signal p(x, y, t) into a one-dimensional signal s(t)
t (time)
which can be transmitted.
• Progressive scanning: left-to-right and top-to-bottom FrameK
– Samples in time: frames/sec
– Samples along y: lines Frame2
Frame1
– Samples along x: pixels
(only for digital video)
• We perceive the images as
continuous, not discrete:
human visual system
performs the interpolation !
• How many frames, lines, and pixels ? Progressive scanning
 Interlaced Scanning
• If the frame rate is too slow - > flickering and jagged movements
• Tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolution
– Slow moving objects with high spatial resolution
– Fast moving objects with high frame rate
• Interlaced scanning: scan all even lines, then scan all odd lines.
• A frame is divided into 2 fields (sampled at different time)
1
2
3
4 A frame
5
6
M

Odd field Even field

1
2
3
4
5
6
 RGB Color Model
• Three basic colors
R: Red
R
G: Green
B: Blue
➔A picture
consists of G
three images

B
 YIQ Color Model
YIQ color model: used in NTSC color TV
• Y - Luminance containing brightness and detail (monochrome TV)
• To create the Y signal, the red, green and blue inputs to the Y signal
must be balanced to compensate for the color perception misbalance
of the eye.
– Y = 0.3R + 0.59G + 0.11B
• Chrominance
– I = 0.6R – 0.28G - 0.32B (cyan-orange axis)
– Q = 0.21R – 0.52G + 0.31B (purple-green axis)
• Human eyes are most sensitive to Y, Y
next to I, next to Q.

Q
 YUV Color Model
• YUV color model: used for PAL TV and CCIR 601 standard
• Same definition for Y as in YIQ model
• Chrominance is defined by U and V – the color differences

– U=B–Y
– V=R–Y
Y

V
 YCrCb Color Model

• YCbCr color model: used in JPEG and MPEG

• Closely related to YUV: scaled and shifted YUV
– Cb = ((B – Y)/2) + 0.5
– Cr = ((R – Y)/1.6) + 0.5

• Chrominance value in YCbCr are always in the

range of 0 to 1 (normalization)
→ Make digital processing easy
 Color Models in Video (Cont…)
• Color models based on linear transformation from
RGB color space
C = M3x3 x CRGB
 Analog NTSC and PAL Video
• NTSC Video: Japan, US, …
- 525 scan lines per frame, 30 frames per second
- Interlaced, each frame is divided into 2 fields, 262.5 lines/field
- 20 lines reserved for control information at the beginning of each field
- So a maximum of 485 lines of visible data
- Color representation: YIQ color model
• PAL Video: China, UK, …
- 625 scan lines per frame, 25 frames per second (40 msec/frame)
Interlaced, each frame is divided into 2 fields, 312.5 lines/field
- Uses YUV color model
- Approximately 20% more lines than NTSC
- NTSC vs. PAL ➔ roughly same bandwidth
 • Analog TV is a continuous signal

Digital Video • Digital TV uses discrete numeric values

– Signal is sampled, and samples are quantized
– Sub-sampling to reduce image resolution or size
• Image represented by pixel array
160 352 720 800 1152 1280 1920
QSIF
(19Kp)
120
SIF (82Kp)
240

601 (300Kp)
486
SVGA (500Kp)
600

ATV (1Mp)
720
Workstation (1Mp)
900
HDTV (2Mp)
1080
 Sample Quantization – Pixel Resolution
• Pixel resolution depends quantization levels/bits
• Usually, 8 bits for each luma/chroma sample when no compression
→ 8bits/1byte per pixel for gray image, 24bits/3byetes for true color image

Luminace (gray) picture

Num. Level Bit
(a) 2 1 (Monochrome)
(b) 4 2
(c) 8 3
(d) 16 4
(e) 32 5
(f) 64 6
 Luma Sampling and Chroma Sub-Sampling

• Chroma subsampling: human visual

system is more sensitive to
luminance than chrominance
→ We can subsample chrominance
• 4:4:4 – No subsampling
• 4:2:2, 4:1:1 – horizontally subsample
• 4:2:0 – horizontally and vertically 4:2:2

4:1:1 4:2:0
Luma Sampling and Chroma Sub-Sampling
 Standards for Video
CCIR 601 CCIR 601
HDTV CIF QCIF
NTSC PAL
Luminance
1920 x 1080 720 x 486 720 x 576 352 x 288 176 x 144
Resolution
Chrominance
960 x 540 360 x 486 360 x 576 176 x 144 88 x 72
Resolution
Color
4:2:2 4:2:2 4:2:2 4:2:0 4:2:0
Subsampling

Frames/sec 60 30 25 15 15

Aspect Ratio 16:9 4:3 4:3 4:3 4:3

Interlacing Yes Yes Yes No No

CCIR – Consultative Committee for International Radio

CIF – Common Intermediate Format (approximately VHS quality)
QCIF – Quarter CIF
 Video Bit Rate Calculation

width ~ pixels (160, 320, 640, 720, 1280, 1920, …) time

height ~ pixels (120, 240, 480, 485, 720, 1080, …)
depth ~ bits per pixel (1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 24, …) Fn
fps ~ frames per second (5, 15, 20, 24, 30, …)

Bit Rate = width * height * depth * fps (bits/sec)

bps

F2

One Frame =
3 pictures
(YCrCb) F1 25
 Data Rate of No-Compressed Video
• Example 1: Resolution 720x385, frame rate 30 frames per sec (fps)
– 720x485 = 349,200 pixels/frame
– 4:4:4 sampling gives 720x485X3=1,047,600 bytes/frame
– 30fps → 1.05Mx30=31.5MBytes/sec → 31.5Mx8bits=250Mbps
– 4:2:2 subsampling gives 720x485x2=698,400 bytes/frame
– 30fps → 0.698x30=21 MB/sec → 21Mx8=168Mbps
-- bps (bit rate)
• Example 2: Resolution 1280x720, frame rate 30fps
bits per second
– 1280x720 = 921,600 pixels/frame
– 4:2:0 subsampling gives 921,600x1.5=1,382,400 bytes/frame
– 30fps → 1.38Mx30=41MB/sec → 41x8=328Mbps (656Mbps 4:4:4)
• Example 3 Resolution 1080x1920, frame rate 60fps
– 1080x1920 = 2,073,600 pixels per frame
– 4:4:4 sampling = 2,073,600x3 = 6,220,800 bytes/frame
– 60fps → 2,073,600x60 = 373,248,000 bytes per second
→ 374MB/s = 374Mx8=3Gbps
➔ Conclusion: Compressing Digital Video !!!
 Video Coding Standards Organizations

• ITU-T: International Telecommunication Union

- Formerly CCITT
- A United Nations Organization
- Group: Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG)
- Standards: H.261, H.263, H.264, etc
• ISO: International Standards Organization
- Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)
→ Standards: JPEG/JPEG2000 (still image), MJPEG (motion picture)
- Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)
→ Standards: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, (MPEG-7, MPEG-21)
• … and more!
Analog Video Connectors
Digital Video Connectors
 Assignment

• Research on digital video streaming

– Minimum and maximum video specification supported (resolution, bit depth, frame
rate, audio specification, etc)
– Calculate minimum and maximum bandwidth needed (without compression)
theoretically
– Experiment on real bandwidth use, for example stream a video for some duration
and then check data usage.
– Find some information about the compression on the chosen video streaming
platform.