Video Signal Transmission

Prior to the 1970s virtually all electronics systems with the exception of digital computers employed analog technology. In an analog system, the output signal, whether it is audio, video, or some other signal format, is literally and ideally the analog of the input signal. Although this sounds simple to achieve, in practice this is extremely difficult to do accurately, and analog signals have always been highly susceptible to rapid signal degradation, electrical noise, and distortion, particularly when multiple generations or reproductions of the signal are required. Digital signals on the other hand, are essentially immune to the problems that plague analog, and theoretically, an infinite number of signal regenerations are possible with zero quality loss.
Video Basics and Terminology

There are three essential figures of merit that apply to any video transmission system, and each of these parameters has a major impact as to the qualitative and quantitative performance of the system: Signal-to-Noise Ratio: Defines the ability of the system to maintain the clarity and fine detail or resolution contained within the video image, and is expressed in decibels (dB). As this is the ratio of the video signal level to the electrical noise level introduced by the transmission link, higher signal-to-noise ratios are representative of better transmission system performance. Differential Gain: Defines the fidelity or accuracy of the video contrast level, from black to white, and is expressed as the percentage deviation or error in amplitude as the video signal level changes, with lower percentage values indicative of better performance. Differential Phase: Defines the fidelity or accuracy of the color of the video image. For example, skin tones are particularly difficult to maintain accurately in a television system; a system capable of good differential phase performance will provide an accurate rendition of image color. Differential phase is expressed in electrical degrees, with lower values corresponding to better performance. These and other less significant technical parameters are defined by an established and widely used Electronics Industry Association/Television Industry Association standard, known as EIA/TIA RS-250C. This standard describes the technical requirements for color television transmission, and is nonmedia dependent; in other words, the RS250C standard is applicable whether the method of video transmission is via satellite, coaxial cable, or a microwave or fiber optic link, etc. The RS-250C standard is broken down into three separate and important categories: Long-Haul, Medium-Haul, and ShortHaul Transmission. RS-250C Long-Haul Transmission was originally created to establish the video transmission requirements for television network broadcasting on those long-distance (or long-haul) coaxial cable and microwave links that transmitted the signal on a coast-to-coast basis. It is characterized by a signal-to-noise ratio of 54 to 59 dB; differential phase of 2.5 degrees, maximum; and differential gain of 8%, maximum. This specification is now widely used within the industrial security market, particularly for CCTV surveillance applications, and is capable of providing very good quality video transmission at low equipment cost. The RS-250C Medium-Haul Transmission specification was created to control the video transmission requirements for those links between the television studio and a remotely-located transmitter site, which could be separated by a typical distance of 20 or 30 miles. It is a more stringent specification when compared to the long-haul specification, and is characterized by a signal-to-noise ratio of 60 to 67 dB; differential phase of 1.3 degrees, maximum; and differential gain of 5%, maximum. The medium-haul specification has been widely adopted for use within the ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) community, most likely due to the transmission distance similarity, and the video transmission quality is high and the cost of the transmission equipment is still reasonable. Medium-Haul compliant transmission equipment is also used within high-end industrial security CCTV surveillance applications. RS-250C Short-Haul Transmission defines the video transmission requirements strictly within the television broadcast studio or production facility, and is a true broadcast-quality specification. Not possible to achieve at reasonable cost until the recent introduction of fiber optic digitally encoded video transmission equipment, the RS-250C Short-Haul specification provides the highest possible level of video transmission performance and is characterized by a signal-to-noise ratio of greater than 67 dB; differential phase of 0.7 degrees or better; and differential gain of 2%, maximum. Equipment meeting this standard is representative of the current state-of-the-art in fiber optic video transmission quality and performance. Additionally, until the introduction of digitally-encoded fiber optic video transmission equipment, it was extremely difficult to achieve RS-250C Short-Haul Transmission performance in a system capable of deployment in unconditioned roadside or out-of-plant environments.
Fiber Optic Video Transmission Systems

For the fiber optic transmission of video, the following transmission systems are commonly utilized:

Amplitude or Intensity Modulation (AM): An all-analog system, the brightness or intensity of a light-emitting diode (LED) within the optical transmitter unit varies linearly with the incoming video level. The amplitude modulated optical signal is transmitted through the fiber to the optical receiver unit, where the signal is converted back to analog baseband video. AM video transmission is widely used within the industrial security market for low to medium-end CCTV surveillance and security applications. It is good for short transmission distances and the qualitative video performance such a system is capable of providing is quite good and almost invariably of RS-250C Long-Haul Transmission quality. However, AM video transmission equipment is only available at the 850 Nm. multimode operating wavelength, and this limits the maximum usable transmission distance. More significantly, the signal-to-noise ratio with an AM-based system degrades relatively linearly at 2 dB for every 1 dB of optical path loss, so acceptable quality video transmission may only be obtainable at relatively short fiber optic cable distances. Lastly, AM product will not support the RS-250C Medium or Short-Haul video transmission requirements demanded of todays ITS and higher-end industrial security applications. Frequency (or Pulsed-Frequency) Modulation (FM): Also an analog system, a radio frequency (RF) carrier is frequency modulated linearly by the incoming video signal. This modulated RF carrier in turn is applied the LED or laser emitter in the optical transmitter unit, and the frequency modulated signal is transmitted through the fiber to the optical receiver unit, where the FM signal is converted back to analog baseband video. FM video transmission is currently widely used within the ITS and high-end industrial security markets. It provides very high video transmission performance of usually RS-250C Medium-Haul quality and at reasonable cost. Unlike AM equipment, FM product is available for use at 1300 nm. multimode or single mode operation, as well as 1550 nm. single-mode, and is typically used for transmission distances of up to 66 km. No user adjustments are required to facilitate the installation. Although FM can provide high transmission quality, the signal-to-noise ratio will degrade at higher levels of optical attenuation or on longer fiber optic cable runs and the relationship between signal-to-noise ratio vs. optical attenuation is not linear, so the performance is not fully predictable or consistent. Additionally, RS-250C Short-Haul Transmission quality is very difficult to achieve with FM-based systems, and the FM video transmitter and receiver units may be susceptible to external sources of electromagnetic and radio frequency interference (EMI/RFI) from cellular telephones and handy-talkies, etc., commonly encountered in out-of plant and roadside environments. Digitally-Encoded Video Transmission: A standard NTSC (National Television Standards Committee), PAL ( Phase Alternating Lines), or SECAM (Systeme Electronique Coleur Avec Memoire) baseband analog CCTV video signal is sampled at a very high rate and converted to a digital signal format, and applied to the LED or laser emitter within the video optical transmitter unit. This digitized signal is transmitted through the fiber, and then converted back to an analog baseband video signal within the optical receiver unit. The latest generation of fiber optic video transmission equipment employs digital-encoding of the incoming analog baseband video signal (from the CCTV camera) via an internal analog-to-digital converter or CODEC (c oder/ decoder) within the optical transmitter unit. This digitized signal in turn modulates an LED or laser emitter, is transmitted optically through the fiber to the optical receiver unit, where the previously digitized signal is converted back to an analog baseband video signal by an internal digital-to-analog converter. As such, the system is completely transparent electrically from the optical transmitter video input, through the fiber, to the video output of the optical receiver unit, and is directly compatible with any NTSC, PAL, or SECAM CCTV camera unit currently available. When we discuss digitally-encoded video transmission equipment, the figure of merit to be considered for evaluation on a product-by-product basis is the number of digital bits utilized by the system. The number of bits ultimately defines the systems electrical dynamic range and end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio and will have a major impact on video transmission performance. Any system of 6-bit resolution is currently considered technically inferior and not representative of the current state-of-the-art, and such a system can be expected to yield images with noticeable artifacts and degradation to the video. For this reason, the minimum number of bits that should be utilized within a digitally-encoded video transmission system is 8. 8-bit resolution or encoding will provide video transmission quality that meets or exceeds the requirements of RS-250C Medium-Haul, and 10-bit encoding will enable performance that exceeds all of the requirements of RS-250C Short-Haul Transmission, or true broadcast video quality. There is essentially no advantage in going beyond 10-bit encoding, as a point of diminishing returns in performance is reached quickly, along with a significant increase in system cost. No video compression is utilized, so the video transmitted is real-time and with zero latency, at the standard frame rate of 30 frames per second, and with none of the pixelization or other video artifacts frequently associated with wavelet, T-1, fractional T-1, MJPEG, or MPEG-1 compressed video systems. The technical advantages of digitally-encoded video transmission are numerous and significant: True broadcast-quality performance that can exceed all of the parameters defined for RS-250C Short-Haul Transmission in an environmentally-hardened system designed for installation in unconditioned out-of-plant or roadside environments. For virtually all users, the benchmark or standard for video quality is an image that is of broadcast-quality; fiber optic 8 or 10-bit digitally encoded video transmission assures the user that this criteria can be easily and consistently achieved. The signal-to-noise ratio, differential gain, differential phase, and all other video parameters associated with the RS-250C standard are constant from the minimum optical path loss to the maximum usable optical path loss. For single mode applications, 23 to 26 dB optical loss budgets can be easily supported with zero video performance variation or degradation.

 The video performance is constant, predictable, and repeatable throughout the entire network, characteristics highly
desired by communications engineers. Minimal signal degradation at the critical first physical layer of the video transmission network (CCTV camera output) maintains the overall system (or end-to-end) video performance at a very high level. The reduced component parts count enhances the system MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) and long-term reliability, and the system is immune to the effects of external sources of RFI and EMI. Digitally-encoded video transmission is ideally suited to those applications where modern high resolution CCTV cameras for very high performance surveillance applications are utilized, as the image quality such cameras can provide would be otherwise degraded with an AM or FM-based fiber optic transmission system. The video quality is superior when compared to fiber optic T-1, fractional T-1, or MPEG-1 compressed video CODEC transmission systems. Perhaps most importantly, the cost for a fiber optic digitally-encoded video transmission system is comparable to functionally-equivalent FM-based RS-250C Medium-Haul equipment, and the video transmission performance is significantly better. Source: 1. Advanages of Digital Signal Transmission By Bruce M Berman 2. Fiber Optic Communications by University of Arizona 3. IFS training schedules.