Embedded pilot tracking tone generation for digital VCRs

Abstract

Pilot tracking tones are used to derive head position reference information in camcorders and DVCRs. A simple pilot tone encoder has been designed by using a new approach, called ''calculate-and-correct'' method, in which encoding is preformed by assuming that all the control bits are 0's and the results are corrected if necessary. Owing to this method, the hardware size can be significantly reduced while low clock rate of 41.85 MHz is used. The correctness of the method has been verified by theoretical analysis and by extensive simulation.