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DigitalVideoAndHDTVAlgorithmsAndInterfaces.pdf

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Pratt, William K., Digital Image<br />

Processing, Second Edition<br />

(New York: Wiley, 1991). , 64.<br />

SMPTE EG 28, Annotated<br />

Glossary of Essential Terms for<br />

Electronic Production.<br />

The error propagated into the digital image-processing<br />

community. Pratt’s textbook states:<br />

N.T.S.C. formulated a color coordinate system for<br />

transmission composed of three tristimulus values YIQ.<br />

The Y tristimulus value is the luminance of a color.<br />

The video quantities are certainly not tristimulus values,<br />

which are, by CIE’s definition, proportional to intensity.<br />

Loose nomenclature on the part of video engineers has<br />

misled a generation of digital image processing,<br />

computer software, and computer hardware engineers.<br />

The enshrining of luma<br />

The term luma was used in video for a long time,<br />

without having had a precise interpretation.<br />

I campaigned among video engineers, and among<br />

computer graphics experts, for adoption of the term<br />

luma to designate the nonlinear video quantity. The<br />

term offers no impediment to video engineers – in fact,<br />

it slides off the tongue more easily than luminance. By<br />

virtue of its being a different word from luminance, the<br />

word luma invites readers from other domains to investigate<br />

fully before drawing conclusions about its relationship<br />

with luminance.<br />

With the help of Fred Kolb, my campaign succeeded: In<br />

1993, SMPTE adopted Engineering Guideline EG 28,<br />

Annotated Glossary of Essential Terms for Electronic<br />

Production. EG 28 defines the term luma, and clarifies<br />

the two conflicting interpretations of the term luminance.<br />

While a SMPTE EG is not quite a SMPTE “Standard,”<br />

at long last the term has received official<br />

recognition. There’s no longer any excuse for sloppy use<br />

of the term luminance by the authors of video engineering<br />

papers and books. Had the term luma been<br />

widespread 20 years ago when A.R. Smith was writing<br />

about YIQ, or when Foley and van Dam were preparing<br />

Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, this whole<br />

mess would have been avoided. But EG 28 was unavailable<br />

at the time.<br />

598 DIGITAL VIDEO AND HDTV ALGORITHMS AND INTERFACES

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