Digital pulse generator phase-locked to color television video signals

Abstract

In playback scanning of oblique tracks the jumps of velocity errors in the transition from one head to another are found to be substantially constant, but the magnitude of the velocity error as a whole is subject to statistical fluctuation and the like. Within a track a velocity error determined for one line is used for correction in the following line, while for the first line the magnitude of a jump from a previous magnetic head changeover in the same sense is utilized. With the help of a value from the last line or next-to-last line of the earlier track, a correction value is provided for the first line of the after next track. A ramp signal is inserted in each horizontal blanking interval ahead of the color synchronization signals, raising the latter to the top of the ramp level. The inserted signals are digitized along with the video signal. Samples of the digital ramp signal which pass through a magnitude window (70-73), which is set for passage of not more than two samples in a narrow range symmetrical with respect to the ramp midpoint, address a PROM which converts those magnitudes into timing error values of the pulse generator which provides sampling rate pulses for the converter that digitizes the video signal. The timing error values are used to correct the phase of that pulse generator.