
I ntrocl uction to com posite
NTSC and PAL 12
NTSC stands for
National Televi-
sion System Committee.
PAL stands
for
Phase Alternate Line
(or
according to some sources,
Phase
Alternation
at
Line
rate, or perhaps
even
Phase Alternating Line).
SECAM is a composite technique of
sorts, though it has little in common
with NTSC and PAL. See page 576.
In
component
video, the three color components are
kept separate. Video can use
R'G'B'
components
directly, but three signals are expensive to record,
process, or transmit. Luma (Y') and color difference
components based upon
B'-Y'
and
R'-Y'
can be used to
enable subsampling: ...