Electrical and Photographic Compensation in Television Film Reproduction

Abstract

The reproduction of filmed material over the television system seldom approaches the quality of direct projection. The degradation in quality is usually apparent as loss of detail, compression in both the highlights and the shadows, increased fluctuation noise and the introduction of spurious signals in the form of shading, edge flare, spots and halo. Loss of detail and distortion of the contrast rendition can be reduced by the employment of electrical compensation. Such methods have been employed with varying degrees of success. The extent to which they can be used is limited by the aggravation of noise and spurious signals. Conventional photographic processes do not permit an increase in detail to be achieved while attempts to minimize the compression of the highlights and shadows by reducing the range of the positive transparency to be televised are accompanied by loss of resolution due to the lowered contrast in the fine detail.