Black and burst

Black and burst can also be used to synchronise colour phase and provides timing accuracy in the order of tens of nanoseconds which is necessary to perform e.g. analogue video mixing.

Black and burst exists for various colour TV standards, such as PAL, NTSC and SECAM.

In every composite video signal a reference burst is present in the horizontal sync portion, so all equipment in the chain will be synchronised roughly 16000 times per second.

Because the signal chains are now digital, which allows buffering, the timing requirements are not as strict anymore.

Its natural waveform is a negative pulse with a level of -40 IRE followed by 10 cycles of the colour sub carrier of video.