Low frequency digital comb filter system

• US 4,464,675 A
• Filed: 08/04/1982
• Issued: 08/07/1984
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/1982
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RCA Corporation (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: RCA Corporation (General Electric Company)
• Inventors: Steckler, Steven A., Balaban, Alvin R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Masinick, Michael A.
• Application Number:
  US06/405,165
• Time in Patent Office: 734 Days
• Field of Search: 358/13, 358/31
• US Class Current: 348/665
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/78 for separating the brightness signal or the chrominance signal from the colour television signal, e.g. using comb filter

Abstract

A comb filter arrangement operating at a reduced data rate is provided, which requires comparably fewer storage locations than previous arrangements. A digitized composite video signal of a given codeword rate is applied to a first bandpass filter, which produces a filtered signal restricted to a portion of the passband of the composite video signal. The filtered signal is then subsampled at a rate which satisfies the Nyquist criterion for information of the restricted passband. Codewords, now at a reduced data rate, are applied to a one-H delay line, and delayed and undelayed signals are combined to produce a first comb-filtered signal. The first comb-filtered signal is then applied to a second bandpass filter, which provides a sequence of codewords at the codeword rate of the original digitized composite video signal over a given frequency band. This sequence of codewords is then combined with the codewords of the composite video signal to produce a second comb-filtered signal.

Claims

1. In a television signal processing system, including a source of sampled data video signals at a given data rate having first and second frequency interleaved signal components in a video passband, a comb filter system comprising:

a first bandpass filter having an input responsive to said sampled data video signals and an output at which filtered signal samples occupying a portion of said video passband are produced at said given data rate;

a comb filter, responsive to said filtered signal samples, and operating at a reduced data rate which is less than said given data rate, for producing a comb filtered signal at said reduced data rate; and

a second bandpass filter responsive to said comb filtered signal for producing a comb filtered signal at said given data rate which occupies a portion of said video passband.

3. The arrangement of claim 1 or 2, further comprising:

means, responsive to said comb filtered signal produced by said second bandpass filter and to said video signals provided by said signal source, for combining said signals to produce a second comb filtered signal.

2. In a television signal processing system, including a source of sampled data video signals at a given data rate having first and second frequency interleaved signal components in a video passband, a comb filter system comprising:

a first bandpass filter having an input responsive to said sampled data video signals and an output at which filtered signal samples occupying a portion of said video passband are produced at said given data rate;

a comb filter, responsive to said filtered signal samples, and operating at a reduced data rate which is less than said given data rate, for producing a comb filtered signal at said reduced data rate;

an interpolator having an input responsive to said comb filtered signal and an output at which a replica of said comb filtered signal is produced at said given data rate; and

a second bandpass filter, coupled to the output signal at said given data rate for producing a comb filtered signal which occupies a portion of said video passband.

4. In a television receiver, including a source of analog video signals occupying a given passband and containing first and second frequency interleaved signal components, a signal separation system comprising:

an analog to digital converter responsive to said analog video signals for producing a sequence of digitized video signal samples in response to a sampling signal of a given frequency;

a first bandpass filter having an input responsive to said digitized video signal sequence and an output at which a sequence of filtered video signal samples occupying a portion of said passband is produced at said given frequency;

a first comb filter having an input responsive to selected ones of said filtered video signal samples and an output at which a first sequence of comb filtered signal samples is produced in a first phase relationship with said filtered video signal sample sequence;

a second comb filter having an input responsive to selected ones of said filtered video signal samples and an output at which a second sequence of comb filtered signal samples is produced in a second phase relationship with said filtered video signal sample sequence;

means for combining said first and second sequences of comb filtered signal samples to produce a first comb filtered signal corresponding to said first interleaved signal components;

a second bandpass filter having an input responsive to said first comb filtered signal for producing a replica of said first comb filtered signal in a sequence of signal samples at said given frequency which occupies a portion of said passband; and

a signal combining circuit having a first input responsive to said replica of said first comb filtered signal, a second input responsive to said sequence of digitized video signal samples produced by said analog to digital converter, and an output at which a second comb filtered signal corresponding to said second interleaved signal components is produced.

5. The arrangement of claim 4, further comprising:

means for producing a sampling clock signal including sampling pulses of first, second, third and fourth phases,

wherein said analog to digital converter and said bandpass filters are responsive to said sampling clock signal;

means for producing a first subsampling clock signal including subsampling pulses corresponding to the first phase of said sampling clock signal,

wherein said first comb filter is responsive to said first subsampling clock signal for selecting said ones of said filtered video signal samples; and

means for producing a second subsampling clock signal including subsampling pulses corresponding to a second phase of said sampling clock signal,

wherein said second comb filter is responsive to said second subsampling clock signal for selecting said second-named ones of said filtered video signal samples.

6. The arrangement of claim 5, further including:

means for producing a third subsampling clock signal including subsampling pulses corresponding to a third phase of said sampling clock signal; and

means for producing a fourth subsampling clock signal including subsampling pulses corresponding to a fourth phase of said sampling clock signal;

wherein said comb filters are responsive to said first and second subsampling clock signals during a first video line, and to said third and fourth subsampling clock signals during a second, succeeding video line.

7. The arrangement of claim 4 or 6, wherein said first comb filtered signal comprises a comb filtered chrominance signal;

and wherein said signal combining circuit comprises a subtractive signal combining circuit responsive to a replica of said comb filtered chrominance signal and said sequence of digitized video signal samples for producing a comb filtered luminance signal.

8. The arrangement of claim 4, wherein said first comb filtered signal exhibits a sample rate which is less than said given frequency, and said second bandpass filter is responsive to said first comb filtered signal for interpolating sample values so as to produce said replica of said first comb filtered signal exhibiting a sample rate which is equal to said given frequency.

9. The arrangement of claim 4 or 8, wherein said first and second bandpass filters exhibit substantially the same passband response characteristic;

and further comprising;

an equalizing delay coupled between said analog to digital converter and said second input of said signal combining circuit.

10. Apparatus for comb filtering a sampled data composite signal of a given data rate including first and second frequency interleaved components comprising:

a first comb filter responsive to every Nth signal sample for generating a first comb filtered signal where N is an integer;

a second comb filter responsive to every Nth signal sample different from said samples in said first comb filter for generating a second comb filtered signal, said first and second comb filters operating at a lesser rate than the rate of said sampled data composite signal;

means responsive to said first and second comb filtered signals for generating a third comb filtered signal at said sampled data composite signal rate, said third comb filtered signal corresponding to a combed manifestation of one of said first and second interleaved components;

a bandpass filter responsive to said third comb filtered signal for passing a prescribed spectrum thereof;

and

means responsive to said sampled data composite signal and the signal produced by said bandpass filter for producing a fourth comb filtered signal wherein said fourth comb filtered signal and said third further signal correspond substantially exclusively to said first and said second frequency interleaved signal components respectively.

11. In a television signal processing system, including a source of sampled data video signals at a given data rate having frequency interleaved luminance and chrominance signal components in a video passband, a signal separation arrangement comprising:

a first bandpass filter having an input responsive to said sampled data video signals for producing a sequence of filtered signal samples occupying a portion of said passband;

a comb filter, responsive to selected ones of said filtered signal samples for producing a comb filtered luminance signal at a reduced rate which is less than said given data rate;

a second bandpass filter having an input responsive to said comb filtered luminance signal and an output at which a comb filtered luminance signal is produced at said given data rate which occupies a portion of said passband; and

means, having a first input responsive to said comb filtered luminance signal produced by said second bandpass filter, a second input responsive to said sampled data video signals which occupy a portion of said video passband, and an output for producing a comb filtered luminance signal occupying said video passband.

12. The arrangement of claim 11, further comprising:

a lowpass filter coupled between said source of sampled data video signals and said second input of said comb filtered luminance signal producing means, said lowpass filter exhibiting a complementary passband response characteristic to that of said second bandpass filter.

13. The arrangement of claim 11 or 12, wherein said comb filter comprises a shift register, an additive combining circuit, and a subtractive combining circuit, each having an input responsive to selected ones of said filtered signal samples, the output of said shift register being coupled to second inputs of said additive and subtractive combining circuits, said additive combining circuit producing said reduced data comb filtered luminance signal, and said subtractive combining circuit producing a reduced rate comb filtered chrominance signal.