A Progress Report on Improved NTSC

Yves C. Faroudja is founder and president of Faroudja Laboratories, Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., where his current technical work focuses on optimizing NTSC signal performance at all stages to approach performance of high-definition television without a change in standard or bandwidth. Faroudja graduated from the Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité, Paris, with an M.S. degree in electrical engineering. He worked at ITT Research Laboratoires in France and at NATO in Italy as a research engineer until 1965, when he moved to the U.S. While working in Europe, Faroudja participated in three engineering “first”: the development and implementation of the first tide-power plant in the Rance estuary, the first transistorized Doppler radar, and the first laser activated on that continent. After arriving in the Bay Area 20 years ago, Faroudja worked in the area of color television, both as an engineer and as a consultant. In 1981 he founded Faroudja Laboratories, Inc. The company has been instrumental in improving noise-reduction and enhancement technologies, and more recently in developing NTSC encoders and decoders. Faroudja has developed and patented a number of significant new techniques for the improvement of color television images on professional and consumer VTRs, VCRs, cameras, and monitors. Faroudja is a Fellow of the SMPTE, a member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Association des Anciens Eleves (ESE), National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), in addition to his acting as a technical consultant to various U.S. and foreign companies. He was honored with the 1987 Monitor Award for excellence in engineering and the David Sarnoff Gold Medal Award from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers for his contributions in optimizing NTSC signal performance by developing techniques presently used in video-processing equipment.