Readback pulse compensator

DETAILED DESCRIPTION These and other objects which will appear are achieved in accordance with the present invention by introducing, at a carefully selected stage in the path of the signals derived from the recording medium, a low-pass filtering operation not previously utilized in this path.
This low-pass filtering is performed following a nonlinear element provided in the signal path.
This non-linear element may be a zero-crossing detector, or a full-wave rectifier.
This low-pass filtering, which is preferably performed by means of a Gaussian filter, is followed by a series of operations, which, in themselves, may be somewhat analogous to those performed in prior processing techniques for such played back signals.
However, the fact that these operations are now preceded by the low-pass filtering as described above causes them to have a different ultimate effect.
These operations include differentiating the filter output signals, detecting the resulting zero-crossings in one direction, and generating output pulses whose timing corresponds to these detected zero-crossings.
These output pulses are then further utilized in conventional manner for information recovery.
It can be shown that this processing of the original signals in accordance with the present invention substantially reduces the pulling experienced by the output pulses, compared with what would occur in the absence of the present invention.
Other advantages, in terms of simplicity, reduced noise susceptibility, and so forth, will also be experienced.