YUV Color Space

The YUV color space is used by the PAL (Phase Alternation Line), NTSC (National Television System Committee), and SECAM (Sequentiel Couleur Avec Mémoire or Sequential Color with Memory) composite color video standards. The black-and-white system used only luma (Y) information; color information (U and V) was added in such a way that a black-and-white receiver would still display a normal black-and-white picture. Color receivers decoded the additional color information to display a color picture. The basic equations to convert between gamma-corrected RGB (notated as R´G´B´ and discussed later in this chapter) and YUV are:

Y = 0.299R´ + 0.587G´ + 0.114B´
U= – 0.147R´ – 0.289G´ + 0.436B´
= 0.492 (B´ – Y)
V = 0.615R´ – 0.515G´ – 0.100B´
= 0.877(R´ – Y)



R´ = Y + 1.140V
G´ = Y – 0.395U – 0.581V
B´ = Y + 2.032U


For digital R´G´B´ values with a range of 0– 255, Y has a range of 0–255, U a range of 0 to ±112, and V a range of 0 to ±157. These equations are usually scaled to simplify the implementation in an actual NTSC or PAL digital encoder or decoder. Note that for digital data, 8-bit YUV and R´G´B´ data should be saturated at the 0 and 255 levels to avoid underflow and overflow wrap-around problems. If the full range of (B´ – Y) and (R´ – Y) had been used, the composite NTSC and PAL levels would have exceeded what the (then current) black-and-white television transmitters and receivers were capable of supporting. Experimentation determined that modulated subcarrier excursions of 20% of the luma (Y) signal excursion could be permitted above white and below black. The scaling factors were then selected so that the maximum level of 75% amplitude, 100% saturation yellow and cyan color bars would be at the white level (100 IRE).