ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the major technical concepts involved in color television. In essence, color television is a “marriage” of television technology and the art of reproducing color images by means of primary colors. All practical processes for reproducing color images, including color photography, color halftone printing and color television, are based on the primary color principle. That is, the final image in each of these processes is produced by combining a minimum of three primary color images. One of the most significant differences between color television and monochrome television is the necessity for handling three independent picture signals to produce color images. A color camera must provide some means for subdividing an optical image into red, green and blue components so that independent signals can be developed for the primary colors. Encoding and decoding in a color system are also necessary to solve the compatibility problem, which has great practical and commercial significance for the broadcaster.
