Clocked Video IP for NTSC bt656

Nadeem

I failed at several attempts to get the Test Pattern Generator to send data to the Clocked Video Output and then on to a Video Encoder in BT-656 format using VIP. I tried inside SOPC Builder and Inside Qsys. Both failed and I thought it was the tools. I finally moved both the TPG and CVI blocks to a the Quartus II block level (BSF). The setup attached displays color bars running on a normal NTSC monitor. I attached a PDF file showing the steps I used and hope it is helpful to you, or someone else, that has a similar problem. Seeing Color Bars on an NTSC monitor was my only goal in this write up. It requires I2C inititialization via NIOS2 for the ADI color encoder and a 27MHZ clock.

In your text you mention entering a variety of field lenghts for F0 and F1 fields. I tried to do this and the vertical sync was being written over by the CrYCbY data until (using the 100th monkey algorithm) I got this version (see attached PDF) to produce color bars. In the latest version of VIP there is an NTSC setup button that sets most of the parameters correctly.

There may be better ways to do this but at least this is one way to see that the hardware works. I am a new-user and am in awe of the people that have done this type of work for many years. They make it look simple. It is "after it works". Till then it is not simple at all.

Lyle