Patent ID: 8374347

Claim:
A method of synthesizing a copy protection signal in a video signal which provides sporadic color distortion or flickering and fluctuating color reproduction on a recording of the video signal which was recorded on and played back from a video recorder, wherein the copy protection signal includes a color burst envelope containing one or more subcarrier cycles of a phase which differs from the normal color burst phase and or one or more cycles of substantially normal color burst phase to form a color stripe burst envelope, the method comprising: providing via a circuit the color burst envelope following a horizontal sync pulse in one or more selected horizontal blanking intervals; and reducing via a circuit the amplitude of at least a portion of the color burst envelope which includes the subcarrier cycles that differ from the normal color burst phase, while maintaining substantially normal amplitude of the one or more cycles of the normal color burst phase in the color burst envelope, to provide the sporadic color distortion or flickering and fluctuating color reproduction on a recording played back from a video recorder while providing substantially normal playability of the video signal when the video signal including the copy protection signal is coupled to a television set.