To develop small, high-quality cameras, we have been studying an imaging method for NTSC using a single-chip HDTV CCD. The arrangement of the color filter array is the key issue for reproducing color images and improving color image quality for both HDTV and NTSC. Since two-pixel and four-pixel mixing are required to generate signals for both scanning systems, there are only a few choices for the color filter arrangement. The vertical stripe filter array is one possibility that satisfies the operational requirements, but it has poor horizontal resolution characteristics. In this paper, we propose a new color filter array and color separating method. The new filter array has a quincunx sampling structure for different color signals, which improves the color resolution, and it is easy to separate color signals for NTSC. Using simulations, we compare the quality of images from our filter to that of images reproduced by a vertical stripe filter array.
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