This note contains errata for the first printing of the book A Technical Introduction to Digital Video, by Charles Poynton, published by John Wiley & Sons (1996).
To determine which printing of the book you have, turn to the copyright page of the front matter (page iv) and examine the bottom line. The rightmost digit of that line indicates which printing you have. This note contains errata for the first printing. If you have the second printing or later, although all of the corrections that you need are present here, you will find it easier to correct from the Errata for the newer printing: That will avoid your having to review corrections which have already been incorporated into your copy.
I revise this note as I discover errors, and I tag each entry with the date it was posted. I suggest that when you mark your copy with these corrections, that you annotate the back of the title page of your book with the revision date that you find at the bottom of this page. Then when you check future revisions of this document, you can determine if additional corrections need to be made.
In the entries below, I acknowledge individuals who have contributed corrections. All of the errors dated 1996-06-05 were identified by David J. Carlstrom; those dated 1996-12-30 by Chris Pirazzi of SGI. I am very grateful to them, and to Peter W. Rander, who identified several inconsistencies in the HTML conversion.
Copyright © 2002-04-24 Charles Poynton
A typographic version
of this document is available in Acrobat
PDF format. The typographic version provides replacement
figures.1996-03-21: Page xxix of the front matter. The correct title of the third book mentioned in the marginal note is Envisioning Information.
1997-06-01: Page 11. In Figure 1.7, Interlaced scanning, at the bottom of the page, several numbers need to be incremented by one: Change 261 to 262, 262 to 263, 263 to 264, and 264 to 265. A replacement figure is provided in the Acrobat PDF version of this document.
2002-04-24: Page 11. In Figure 1.5, Digital video rasters, at the lower right, 1135 1/625 should be replaced by 1135 4/625. Thanks to Maxim Vlassov.
1998-10-16: Page 14. In Figure 1.8, Vertical sync waveform of 525/59.94, the 0V notation should lie under the fourth tick from the left, not the seventh. A replacement figure and caption are provided.
2002-04-24: Page 16. In the second paragraph, third line, 1/625 should be replaced by 4/625. Thanks to Maxim Vlassov.
1999-06-30: Page 19. In Figure 1.11, Frequency response, bandwidth should refer to the frequency where amplitude has fallen to 0.707. A replacement figure and caption are provided.
1999-06-30: Page 20. In the penultimate line of the first paragraph, replace half with 0.707.
1997-09-04: Page 25. To clarify that MPEG-2 subsampling is different from the subsampling used in JPEG, H.261, and MPEG-1, I refined Figure 1.14 and its caption. A replacement figure and caption are provided in the Acrobat PDF version of this document.
1997-09-04: Page 26. To clarify JPEG, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2 subsampling, replace the 4:2:0 paragraph in the middle of page 26 with this:
JPEG, H.261, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2 usually use 4:2:0 sampling. CB and CR are each subsampled by a factor of 2 both horizontally and vertically; CB and CR are sited vertically halfway between scan lines. Horizontal subsampling is inconsistent. In MPEG-2, CB and CR are cosited horizontally. In JPEG, H.261, and MPEG-1, CB and CR are not cosited horizontally; instead, they are sited halfway between alternate luma samples.
1996-06-05: Page 29. In the penultimate line of the fifth paragraph, 7/8 of the way down the page, replace synctip by blanking.
1996-12-09: Page 37. In the third paragraph under Truecolor, exchange the italicized word truecolor in the third line with the italicized words direct color in the last line.
1998-04-28: Page 44. In the first line of the lead paragraph under Sampling theorem, insert the word be between to and digitized.
1998-05-30:
Page 52. In Figure 3.7 Fourier transform pairs, the
two boxcar functions are improperly scaled: The function should have a value of
unity across the range ±0.5 (not ±1).
1999-06-30: Page 57. In the penultimate line of the first paragraph in the section Lowpass filter, replace half with 0.707. On the last line of the page, replace fP by fC.
1999-06-30: Page 58. Figure 3.12, Lowpass filter characterization, bandwidth should refer to the frequency where amplitude has fallen to 0.707. A replacement figure and caption are provided.
1996-03-21: Page 59, Figure 3.13, Rec. 601 filter templates. The y-axis is labeled incorrectly. In two places, change Insertion Loss to Insertion Gain. At the top, the ticks -0.050 and -0.010 need to have their minus signs changed to plus signs; the ticks 10, 20, ..., 60 in the stopband need to be prepended by minus signs.
1996-03-21: Page 61, Figure 3.15, Half-band filter. The y-axis is labeled incorrectly. In two places, change Insertion Loss to Insertion Gain. At the top, the tick -0.050 needs to have its minus sign changed to a plus sign. The ticks 10, 20, ..., 80 in the stopband need to be prepended by minus signs.
1996-03-21: Page 72, Figure 4.10. In the center of the figure, the parenthesized phrase should read fraction of picture height.
1996-03-21: Page 73, in the second paragraph, third line, add an "s" to pluralize the first word of the line: samples.
1996-03-21: Page 73, Figure 4.11. The figure should be titled Spatial frequency spectrum of NTSC. You may also wish to make the corresponding correction in the List of figures, on page xx [sic] of the front matter.
1996-03-21: Page 73, 74, and 75, Figures 4.11, 4.12, and 4.13. The horizontal axis in each of these three figures should be labelled C/PW.
1999-12-28: On page 82, replace the first paragraph with:
Intensity measures the flow of power in a particular, specified direction - intensity is power per unit solid angle. Radiance is intensity per unit area. It is measured with an instrument called a radiometer, and is what I call a linear-light measure, expressed in units such as watts per steradian per square meter (W · sr-1 · m-2).Also on page 82, in the Luminance section, second paragraph, second line, replace radiant power by radiance.
1996-06-05: Page 82. In the Luminance section, second paragraph, sixth line, replace CIIE by CIE.
1999-12-28: On page 91, add this marginal note:
In physics, intensity is defined as radiant power per unit solid angle; it has units of watts per steradian (W · sr-1). Grayscale image data is normally based upon relative luminance, which is intensity per unit area, weighted by the spectral sensitivity of human vision, and normalized to a reference white. This chapter concerns the nonlinear mapping of relative luminance. In this chapter, I use the term intensity to emphasize the linear-light nature of the associated quantity. In the following chapter, I will detail luminance.
1996-03-21: On page 94, in the fourth line up from the bottom of the page, replace above by below.
1997-12-29: On page 102, on the y-axis ("Video signal") of Figure 6.6, replace 0.099 by 0.081. Thanks to Michael Laird of Avid.
1999-10-07: On page 119, in the second line of the first paragraph, replace per unit area by in a particular direction. Replace the last two words of the paragraph, square meter, by per steradian. In the second paragraph, replace the word power by intensity (per unit area).
1997-07-01: On page 130, in the third line up from the bottom of the page, replace or by of.
1998-12-22: On page 135, the chromaticity diagram of Figure 7.12 shows the blue primary about 1 cm higher than its true position. A replacement figure is provided.
1996-06-05: Page 156, Fig. 8.1, RGB and Y, B-Y, R-Y cubes. In the bottom sketch of the pair, the (Y=0) and (Y=1) tags are reversed: The tag beside Wt at the top of the cube should be labelled (Y=1); the one at the bottom labelled Bk should be tagged (Y=0).
1996-05-07: Page 157, in the third paragraph, second line, replace brightness luminance with luminance comprises.
1996-04-28: Page 159, Figure 8.2, B'-Y', R'-Y' Orthographic views. The end of the caption paragraph has a truncated page reference: append page 173.
1997-11-19: Page 165. The offset terms of Equation 8.2 need to be corrected, by changing 0.0228 to 0.1115, in three places. Thanks to Jan van Rooy of Philips, Breda.
1999-12-28: Page 166. Equation 8.5 was correct
when printed, but ITU-R subsequently changed the Rec. 709 luma coefficients
in the fourth decimal place. The correct coefficients are now these:
1996-05-02: Page 174. On the fifth line of the section CBCR Components, change two's complement to offset binary.
1996-04-28: Page 175, Figure 9.3, CBCR Components. The extreme value of CB on the horizontal axis is erroneously indicated as 224: change this to 240. Similarly, change 224 on the vertical axis to 240. In Equation 9.5, in the numerators of the scale factor fractions for CB and CR, change 0.5 to 1 in two places. Thanks to Rob Engle of Hewlett-Packard, and to Bill Herz of S3, for reporting these problems.
1998-04-28: Page 177. In the final line of the page, change the phrase 9-bit multipliers are required to multipliers having more than 8 bits are required. Thanks to Chris Parazzi.
1998-10-16: Page 178. In the second paragraph of the section Kodak PhotoYCC, at the end of the fifth line, change 189 to 182. In Eq. 9.12, change the subscript 189 to 182.
1996-03-21: Page 183, Figure 9.6 IQ Components has its color hexagon rotated 33 degrees counterclockwise, instead of clockwise. A replacement figure is provided in the Acrobat PDF version of this document.
1996-06-27: Page 186. In the paragraph Subcarrier regeneration, in the fourth line, replace cos by sin.
1996-06-27: Page 187. In the second paragraph, under Quadrature modulation,
in the third line of the second paragraph, exchange cos and sin.
Equation 10.1 requires a similar change, so as to appear:
1996-06-27: Page 188, 189. Figures 10.3 and 10.4 contain wiring errors. Replacements are provided in the Acrobat PDF version of this document.
1996-06-05: Page 194. In the fourth line under the topic PAL-M, PAL-N, replace the second instance of M/PAL (PAL-M, PAL-525) by N/PAL (PAL-N, PAL-3.58).
1996-06-08: Page 200. In the third paragraph, second line, replace 60 by 30. In the last line of that paragraph, replace 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 by 25 x (5 x 5 x 5 x 5). In the fifth line of the next topic Sound subcarrier, replace monochrome 525/59.94 by monochrome 525/60.
1996-08-02: Page 205. In the last paragraph on the page, at the start of the fourth line from the bottom, insert is between This and a hundred. Thanks to Brian Murray.
1997-11-13: Page 216. In the second paragraph under Component digital 4:2:2 interface, in the third line, change 732 to 736. In Figure 13.2 on the facing page, change two occurrences of 732 to 736.
1996-12-30: Page 218. In the y-axis legend of Figure 13.3, replace 54 4/7 by 53 4/7, and replace -286 5/7 by -285 5/7.
1996-06-27: Page 223, Color difference filtering. Delete the
second bulleted item. In Equations 14.1 and 14.2, exchange cos
and sin:
1996-12-30: Page 227. In the y-axis legend of Figure 14.4, replace 54 4/7 by 53 4/7, and replace -286 5/7 by -285 5/7.
1997-11-13: Page 230, Table 15.1, 625/50 Line assignment. A marginal note is missing from the table:
The vertical center of the picture is located midway between lines 479 and 167.
The terms odd and even are ambiguous when referring to fields in 625/50 scanning. To avoid confusion, I recommend that you use the terms first and second instead. In the heading row, replace Even with Second and Odd with First. In the shaded area at the bottom right of the table, delete two instances of Even and two instances of Odd. On the facing page, delete even and odd from bullet items 1, 5, 6, and 10.
1997-11-13: Page 238. In the second paragraph under Component digital 4:2:2 interface, in the second line, change 736 to 732. In Figure 16.1 on the facing page, change two occurrences of 736 to 732.
1996-06-27: Page 242. The three paragraphs under the heading Burst should be replaced; in addition, two marginal notes should be added. The Acrobat PDF version of this document provides a complete replacement page.
1996-06-27: Page 243, under Color difference filtering, delete the second item in the bulleted list. In Equation 17.1, exchange cos and sin.
1997-10-15: Page 244. At the end of the penultimate paragraph, delete the phrase with 7.5-percent setup. Thanks to Vince Capizzo.
1997-11-13: Page 248. At the end of the last paragraph on the page, change instead of TRS to in addition to TRS.
1996-03-21: Page 251, Table 19.1, Summary of broadcast standards. In the entry for M/NTSC, subcarrier frequency should be 3.579545454+. Thanks to Marty Kirkland of KUHT-TV.
1996-04-28: Page 257, Figure 20.1, Colorbars. In the narrow horizontal band between vertical coordinates 0.67 and 0.75, in the third column (underneath CYAN), change BLUE to MAGENTA. In the fifth column (underneath MAGENTA), change BLUE to CYAN. In the seventh column (underneath BLUE), change BLUE to 75% WHITE. A replacement figure is provided.
1996-04-28: Page 263, Figure 20.10, Modulated 12.5T pulse waveform. At the bottom of the figure, change 3.579454 to 3.579545.
1996-03-21: Page 267. In the second to last paragraph, delete the last line and its parentheses, and replace it with using three-pin XLR connectors. Thanks to the sharp-eyed Larry Martin.
1997-07-11: Page 267. In line 2 of the last paragraph, replace 1.2 Kb/s with 2.4 kb/s. Thanks to Ian Holland.
1996-04-28: Page 277. In the top two lines of the page, in the final part of the glossary entry for CB, CR, replace use by apply, and insert in front of the colon at the end of the second line to B'-Y' and R'-Y':
In systems such as 525/59.94 and 625/50 using Rec. 601 luma, it is standard to apply these scale factors to B'-Y' and R'-Y':
In the equations immediately below, change both equal signs to colons,
and in the numerators of each of the two fractions, change 0.5
to 1: 
1997-07-01: Page 293. Near the top of the page, in the last line of item 3 of Resolution, limiting, change two cycles in a TV line to two TV lines in a cycle. Thanks to David Farrant.
1998-12-30: Page 295. In the entry for S-video, in the third line, change two only to exactly 2.