Tuning Signals
The first "Tuning Signals" test card was broadcast by the BBC in 1934. It was a simple line and circle broadcast using Baird's 30-line system, and was used to synchronise the mechanical scanning system. [1]
The following is a list of test cards used by the BBC at various points in broadcasting.
The first "Tuning Signals" test card was broadcast by the BBC in 1934. It was a simple line and circle broadcast using Baird's 30-line system, and was used to synchronise the mechanical scanning system. [1]
Test Card A made its debut in 1937. However, it was only transmitted in the period January to (approx) October 1947, when it was replaced by the first version of Test Card C.
 | This section's factual accuracy is disputed .(December 2017) |
Test Card B was an early BBC television test card. It was very similar to Test Card A but was never broadcast, only used by BBC engineers for internal use. The original card has since gone missing. The only differences were that the frequency bars were juxtaposed, the values were deleted, and an Ilford Panchromatic Response Chart placed below the circle where the letter box had been, the letter box in Test Card A was moved to the top of the card replacing the vertical resolution test. [2]
These amendments were sourced from the BBC Engineering Department Monograph No. 69 of 1967, to correct the disputed text. The illustration is a modern reconstruction not based on factual information available since September 1967.
Test Card C [3] was a BBC television test card first broadcast in 1947. It was the first test card to resemble the famous Test Card F. [2] It was also available as individual rolls of test film in the UK and many Commonwealth countries up until the end of the black-and-white television era. [4] [5]
The image displayed here is a reconstruction and the castelations are incorrect.
These amendments are sourced from the BBC Engineering Department Monograph No. 69 of 1967.
Test Card D was a television test card first broadcast on 5th May 1964 by both the BBC and the ITA. This was the first test card to be based on a specification. [6] Test Card D was amended, and the amendment introduced on the 1st December 1965 as the radio and television trade objected to the original. Both versions had Reduced Power cards from the start. This Test Card was a joint effort between the BBC, BREMA and the ITA.
Test Card E was a television test card designed in 1964 and made to accommodate the 625-line system on BBC2, as opposed to the 405-line system of Test Card D. However, Test Card E lasted for only four and a half days before being withdrawn. Test Card E was thereafter replaced by a modified version of Test Card C, which lasted on BBC2 until December 1964, the illustrated version of Test Card C shown here replaced the first version, and was discontinued in September 1969, and when the colour Test Card F was introduced in July 1967, Test Card C was only shown between 9.00 and 9.58 a.m. A version of the modified Test Card C also aired on BBC1 and BBC 2 from November 1969 (with the BBC1 and BBC 2 logos replacing the "BBC2 625 LINES" caption). This modified Test Card C also had versions where Reduced Power also appeared in the ident box. This version of Test Card C was last used in February 1975, and was only ever generated locally at the transmitter. Test Card E did however see later usage by RTÉ in Ireland and RTP in Portugal alongside Test Card D.
Test Card F was the BBC's longest-running and most famous test card, featuring Carole Hersee and Bubbles the Clown. There have been many different Test Card F variations. [2] It was first broadcast on 2 July 1967 (the day after the first colour pictures appeared to the public on television) on BBC2.
Test Card G was a television test card broadcast occasionally by the BBC. It was the first electronically generated test card to be broadcast, and was a variant of the Philips PM5544 test card. [2] This test card was generally used by local transmitters for opt outs or during times when a particular region was not showing a programme broadcast from London. It was also used in place of Test Card F nationally from time to time when the projector showing the latter test card's photographic slide was not available or undergoing maintenance until Test Card F was converted to electronic form in 1984. [7] Test Card G was also occasionally used by ITV alongside Test Card F before completely switching over to the ETP-1 test card in 1979.
Another Test Card G, unrelated, was developed by Pye as a monochrome variant on Test Card C. It was used in other countries that use 625-line PAL, such as Bulgaria, [8] Denmark, [9] Luxembourg, [10] Thailand, Barbados and Malaysia, [11] but not in Britain. [2] A slightly modified version of the Pye Test Card G was used by YLE in Finland until it switched to the colour Telefunken FuBK test card in the 1970s, as well as in Norway where NRK used it in conjunction with the EIA 1956 resolution chart until it switched to the Philips PM5544, Test Card F and the Telefunken FuBK test cards in the 1970s. [12]
Test Card H was designed as a line up chart for cameras in-studio, possibly to test chroma specifications as well as resolution and bandwidth. The "H" designation was solely used for this chart, and was therefore never allocated to a Test Card used for broadcasting; following this, the letter "I" was also passed over as a Test Card letter, having been considered too similar to the number "1", therefore leading to Test Card J being the next in the series. [13]
Test Card J is an enhanced revision of Test Card F, first broadcast in November 1999. [2]
Test Card W is a widescreen update of Test Card F. A predecessor to Test Card W without an identifying letter first appeared in March 1998 as part of digital tests on the Astra 1D satellite, and was notably broadcast to the public on 6 November 1998 as part of a joke on Have I Got News For You to censor then-host Angus Deayton about discussing Peter Mandelson's life. Test Card W is an updated 16:9 (1.78:1) widescreen version of Test Card F. It first appeared in November 1999 alongside Test Card J, with which it bears some similarities. Both aforementioned test cards were designed for the 16:9 (widescreen) ratio. [2] [14]
The high-definition version of Test Card W is visually similar but officially lacks a designation letter. This version is often referred to as Test Card X, but this is not a designation which the BBC recognises. [15] It is designed for use on high-definition TV services, & had been included a part of BBC HD's preview loop since November 2008 (though it had been in use internally at the BBC for several years prior) until the channel's closure in March 2013.
An electronically generated image was first broadcast on 21 June 1997 on BBC2 between 3 am and 4 am. It was also broadcast in October 1997 from 3:29 am until 3:44 am, when, at the same time, BBC1 showed Test Card G. Both channels reverted over to these at the same time, and reverted to TCF at the same time, as part of a switching test with BBC Birmingham, whereby in the event of a need to evacuate BBC TV to Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, such as a power failure as happened in June 2000, a switch would be thrown, putting Birmingham in control of the network, until BBC Television Centre could regain control. Both TCG and this image were transmitted from Birmingham to prove the switching facility worked.
This test card was then seen again on 17 April 2007 between 4 am and 5 am during the BBC Learning Zone. Both transmissions were accompanied by a four-tone test tone, ranging from extremely low frequency to a very high shrill. It is unknown if this Test Card has a name, [2] though this test card has also been known to be used on point-to-point satellite links originating from the Fucino Space Centre [16] and other places in Italy (Telefisco, [16] Lapet, [16] etc), and by Marconi Portugal. [16] Another version, modified for NTSC, was used by Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) [17] in the 1990s.
There have been a number of untransmitted test cards. They would most likely be for internal use inside the BBC. Most of them are adapted from Test Card F. [2]
A Comic Relief test card was broadcast on BBC1 on 18 March 1993 as part of Comic Relief. [2] This test card featured ten-year-old competition winner Hannah Marriott, wearing a red nose.
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A test card, also known as a test pattern or start-up/closedown test, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast.
Test Card F is a test card that was created by the BBC and used on television in the United Kingdom and in countries elsewhere in the world for more than four decades. Like other test cards, it was usually shown while no programmes were being broadcast. It was the first to be transmitted in colour in the UK and the first to feature a person, and has become an iconic British image regularly subject to parody.
This is a timeline of the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The Philips circle pattern refers to a family of related electronically generated complex television station colour test cards. The content and layout of the original colour circle pattern was designed by Danish engineer Finn Hendil (1939–2011) in the Philips TV & Test Equipment laboratory in Amager near Copenhagen under supervision of chief engineer Erik Helmer Nielsen in 1966–67, largely building on their previous work with the monochrome PM5540 pattern. The first piece of equipment, the PM5544 colour pattern generator, which generates the pattern, was made by Finn Hendil and his group in 1968–69. The same team would also develop the Spanish TVE colour test card in 1973.
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Trade test colour films were broadcast by the television network BBC2 in the early days of colour television in Britain during the long periods of the daytime when no regular programming was scheduled, with the exception of Play School. The goal of these transmissions was to provide colour broadcasting in these intervals for use by television shops and engineers to install, adjust and demonstrate their television sets. The earliest such transmission was made in 1956 but regular all-day-long films ran from autumn 1967 until 24 August 1973. In all, 158 different films were broadcast; on average, each film was shown 90 times. The colour films provided moving colour images to allow tv dealers to demonstrate sets to customers. The decision to stop showing them followed the extension of broadcasting hours on BBC1 and ITV. This, together with the gradual move of schools programmes into colour, meant there was less need to provide moving pictures during trade tests simply to demonstrate sets.
The logo of the BBC has been a brand identity for the corporation and its work since the 1950s in a variety of designs. Until the introduction of a logo in 1958, the corporation had relied on its coat of arms for official documentation and correspondence, although it rarely appeared onscreen. With the increased role of television for the BBC in the 1960s, particularly after the foundation of the ITV network, the corporation used its logo to increase viewer familiarity and to standardise its image and content. The logo has since been redesigned a number of times, most recently in 2021 with the BBC blocks, a logo designed to work across media. From 1958, there have been six different BBC logos. The first logo of the network was used from 1958 to 1963, the second from 1963 to 1971, the third from 1971 to 1992, the fourth from 1988 to 1997, the fifth from 1997 to 2021, while the sixth and current logo was adopted in October 2021.
BBC Schools, also known as BBC for Schools and Colleges or BBC Education, is the educational programming strand set up by the BBC in 1957, broadcasting a range of educational programmes for children aged 5–16. From launch until June 1983, programming was based on BBC1 during the daytime, apart from coverage of major news events which saw the programmes shifted to BBC2. In September 1983, programming was transferred permanently to BBC2 freeing BBC1 to develop its own daytime schedule. The strand, named Daytime on Two, remained on BBC Two until March 2010, later supplemented by the 'Class TV' strand on CBBC.
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In the United Kingdom, television closedowns originally took place frequently during the daytime, and sometimes for a few hours at a time. This was due initially to Government-imposed restrictions on daytime broadcasting hours, and later, budgetary constrictions. The eventual relaxation of these rules meant that afternoon closedowns ceased permanently on the ITV network in October 1972. The BBC took a long time to abandon the practice, and did not commence a full daytime service until the autumn of 1986.
The Telefunken FuBK is an electronic analogue television test card developed by AEG-Telefunken and Bosch Fernseh in West Germany as the successor to the monochrome T05 test card in the late-1960s and used with analogue 625-lines PAL broadcasts.
The TVE colour test card was an electronic analogue TV test card adopted by Televisión Española with the introduction of PAL colour broadcasts in 1975. It is notable for its unique design, created by the Danish engineer Finn Hendil (1939–2011) in 1973, under the supervision of Erik Helmer Nielsen at the Philips TV & Test Equipment laboratory in Amager, south of Copenhagen, the same team that developed the popular Philips PM5544 test pattern. It replaced a previous black and white version developed by Eduardo Gavilán.
The EIA 1956 Resolution Chart is a test card originally designed in 1956 to be used with black and white analogue TV systems, based on the previous RMA 1946 Resolution Chart. It consisted of a printed chart filmed by a TV camera or monoscope to be displayed on a TV screen, and was also available as individual rolls of test film to test broadcasting equipment. Inspecting the chart allowed to check for defects like ringing, geometric distortions, raster scan linearity, cathode-ray tube uniformity and lack of image resolution. If needed, a technician could use it to perform the necessary hardware adjustments.