Noun
subcarrier (plural subcarriers)
(telecommunications) A separate signal carried on a main radio transmission, often carrying additional information such as voice or data.
As a result, PAL-M signals are near identical to North American NTSC signals, except for the encoding of the color subcarrier (3.575611 MHz for PAL-M and 3.579545 MHz for NTSC). Source: Internet
As it turns out, the chroma amplitude (when considered together with the Y signal) represents the approximate saturation of a color, and the chroma phase against the subcarrier as reference, approximately represents the hue of the color. Source: Internet
Although, in response to changing U and V values, the chroma sinewave changes phase with respect to the subcarrier, it's not correct to say that the subcarrier is simply "phase modulated". Source: Internet
Colour encoding Both the PAL and the NTSC system use a quadrature amplitude modulated subcarrier carrying the chrominance information added to the luminance video signal to form a composite video baseband signal. Source: Internet
A subcarrier oscillator in the receiver locks onto this signal (see phase-locked loop) to achieve a phase reference, resulting in the oscillator producing the reconstituted subcarrier. Source: Internet
Before transmission, the subcarrier itself, is removed from the active (visible) portion of the video, and moved, in the form of a burst, to the horizontal blanking portion, which is not directly visible on screen. Source: Internet