Motion picture distribution system

Abstract

An improvement to a motion picture distribution system providing a high quality motion picture system compatible with pre-existing NTSC systems and improving horizontal and vertical detail. The improvement includes a television camera having an anamorphic lens, an encoder coupled to the television camera, and a decoder at a receiver. The anamorphic lens can have an aspect ratio of two to one, and compresses an entire motion picture viewing field into the NTSC-standard, four to three aspect ratio, to produce a horizontally-compressed image. The horizontally-compressed image is output from the television camera as a horizontally-compressed-image signal. The encoder encodes the horizontally-compressed-image signal as a composite-wideband-video signal having increased bandwidth, and generates a subcarrier-composite signal. The composite-wideband-video signal may be directly broadcast to a receiver or recorded by a recording device for subsequent transfer to a receiver, if the receiver is NTSC-compatible, the decoder generates a decoded-subcarrier-composite signal for use by the NTSC-compatible receiver. If the receiver includes a high quality system, then the high quality system uses the subcarrier-composite signal directly, demodulating the entire bandwidth of the composite-wideband-video signal to generate a motion picture image having a quality similar to a 35-mm film distribution print.