Flicker

If you have ever tried to point your video camera at your TV set or your computer monitor to record the image you see, you know that it does not work -- instead of the stable image that your eyes see, there is either incredible flicker or a black rolling bar. The video shows two different frequencies for the monitor: 70 Hz and then 60 Hz. The flicker is caused by two things: A difference in the scanning frequency between the TV and the camera. A difference in the way the phosphor dots are perceived between the human eye and the camera's image sensor.

 A single electron beam scans horizontal lines of pixels across the screen, lighting up each pixel when the beam hits it. The pixels are made of individual phosphor dots that glow when the beam hits them. To our eyes, the dots glow for about 1/30th of a second, so we see a steady image. For a video camera, however, the dots do not appear to glow nearly as long -- the camera is much less sensitive to persistence than our eyes.

Vertical Resolution

When choosing an HDTV, the important thing to remember is the greater the vertical resolution, the greater the picture definition. That's because there are more lines of information and more overall pixels, so the level of definition can be that much more precise. Currently, 1080p HDTVs provide the best vertical resolution available.

Kell Factor
Beat Frequency Problem
When a signal is sampled at frequency that is at least double the Nyquist frequency, it can be fully reconstructed by low-pass filtering since the first repeat spectra does not overlap the original baseband spectra. In discrete displays the image signal is not low-pass filtered since the display takes discrete values as input, i.e. the signal displayed contains all the repeat spectra. The proximity of the highest frequency of the baseband signal to the lowest frequency of the first repeat spectra induces the beat frequency pattern. The pattern seen on screen can at times be similar to a Moir pattern. The Kell factor is the reduction necessary in signal bandwidth such that no beat frequency is perceived by the viewer.

The ratio of theoretical to actual horizontal resolution is called the Kell factor after the engineer who defined it, and it is found, for a range of different line standards, to take values around 0.75; the figures for the 625 line system calculated above correspond to a Kell factor of 0.746. The reason that the Kell factor is less than unity arises from the effective sampling of the picture in the vertical direction and the continuous nature of the process horizontally. The maximum vertical spatial picture frequency is limited because 1 spatial cycle requires 2 picture lines (corresponding to the Nyquist cut-off) whereas in the horizontal direction the system can transmit frequencies above the nominal cut-off (5.5MHz) albeit with reducing amplitude with increasing frequency.

Horizontal Resolution

Video Bandwidth Requirement