By Yves Faroudja And Joseph Roizen, Faroudja Laboratorie
In the early 1950's, when the parameters of the NTSC color television system were established, the theoretical performance of the system was completely unachievable by the television technology existent at that time. Unstable vacuum tubes, drifting components, bandwidth limitations and hue shifts due to phase errors in the equipment, or the transmission path, were quite objectionable. Constant readjustment of the home receiver to maintain a tolerable, if not perfect, image was a fact of life then. However, the visionary pioneers, who laid down those brilliantly conceived NTSC parameters, gave to color television a remarkable potential that, in today's world of solid-state precision, can finally come into its own.
NTSC's basic advantages are almost self-evident. It is the most efficient use of the available spectrum through the interleaving of the luminance and chrominance signals, and it was and continues to be fully compatible with monochrome television. This inherent simplicity obviously makes it the most cost effective system in use as well. Millions of viewers, who live in areas where NTSC is the Cable TV color standard, can now receive acceptable quality color images in their homes, coming from NTSC transmissions.