ABSTRACT
From its early days, the development of television technology has been a constant quest to design equipment that would accurately reproduce the colour and contrast range of the subject in shot. For many years, video picture making avoided any technique that ‘degraded’ the image, i.e. altered the fidelity of the electronic reproduction. The aim was to light and expose for the full range of the video signal and transmit pictures which had good blacks, detail in the highlights, and with the highest resolution the TV system was capable of providing, particularly to viewers receiving pictures in poor reception areas. The technical constraints on both contrast range and resolution were the regulations governing the rationing of bandwidth. Attempts to improve resolution were made by adding enhancement which gave video pictures their characteristic ‘edge’ appearance on dark-to-light and light-to-dark tonal transitions.
