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 was introduced in 1936–37. However, it was only broadcast as engineering tests [2] from January to (approx.) October 1947, when it was replaced by the first version of Test Card C. An electronically generated "cruciform" test card (or "art bars") was often shown instead of Test Card A until well into the 1960s. [3] [2]
The test card was designed to test for focus, frequency response and scan geometry. [4] High frequency response is indicated by gratings corresponding to 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3 MHz; while low frequency response is indicated by a solid black bar below the central circle.
 | 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 and also only broadcast as engineering tests. [2] 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. [5] [2]
Test Card C [6] was a BBC television test card first broadcast in 1947. [2] It was the first test card to resemble the famous Test Card F. [5]
Test Card C allowed adjustment and verification of parameters such as: [7]
The card was 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. [8] [9]
Test Card C continued in use on 405-lines until 1964 being replaced by Test Card D. [7]
625-line variants of Test Card C were later used in Jamaica, Mauritius, Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago. Heavy modifications of Test Card C were used by ABC Television in Australia [10] and NIRT in Iran. [11]
Pye developed a monochrome variant of Test Card C called Test Card G. [2] It was used in several countries that use 625-line PAL and SECAM, such as People's Republic of Bulgaria, [12] Denmark, [13] Luxembourg, [14] Thailand, Barbados, Malaysia, [15] and Hungarian People's Republic, [16] but not in Britain. [5] A slightly modified version 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 and Telenor 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. [17]
Test Card D was a television test card first broadcast on 5 May 1964 by both the BBC and the ITA. [2] This Test Card was a joint effort between the BBC, BREMA and the ITA. [2]
This was the first test card to be based on a specification. [18] 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.
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. [2] However, Test Card E lasted for only four and a half days before being withdrawn. [19] 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. [5] It was first broadcast on 2 July 1967 (the day after the first colour pictures appeared to the public on television) on BBC2. [19]
Test Card G was a television test card broadcast occasionally by the BBC. It was a variant of the famous Philips PM5544 test card and was introduced around 1971 as their first electronically generated colour test card. [5] Test Card G 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 F's photographic slide was not available or undergoing maintenance. This ended some time after Test Card F was converted to electronic form in 1984. [20] Test Card G was also occasionally used by ITV and its regulator the IBA alongside Test Card F and EBU colour bars before switching over to the ETP-1 test card in 1979, though London Weekend Television (LWT) [21] and ITV Channel Television [ citation needed ], two constituent franchisee companies in the ITV network structure, continued to broadcast Test Card G after closedown well into the 1980s.
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. [22]
Test Card J is an enhanced revision of Test Card F, first broadcast in November 1999. [5]
Test Card W is an updated 16:9 (1.78:1) widescreen version of Test Card F. A predecessor card, 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 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. [5] [23]
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. [24] 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, [5] though this test card has also been known to be used on point-to-point satellite links originating from the Fucino Space Centre [25] and other places in Italy (Telefisco, [25] Lapet, [25] etc), and by Marconi Portugal. [25] Another version, modified for NTSC, was used by Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) [26] 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. [5]
A Comic Relief test card was broadcast on BBC1 on 18 March 1993 as part of Comic Relief. [5] This test card featured ten-year-old competition winner Hannah Marriott, wearing a red nose.
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.
George Hersee was a BBC engineer, who is most famous for his development of Test Card F. This design came about after Hersee was asked to intervene by the committee charged with the creation of technical standards for the new colour TV services.
Carole Hersee is an English costume designer who is best known for appearing in the centrepiece of the United Kingdom television Test Card F, which aired on BBC Television from 1967 to 1998. As such, she became the most aired face in British television history.
This is a timeline of the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The Crystal Palace transmitting station, officially known as Arqiva Crystal Palace, is a broadcasting and telecommunications site in the Crystal Palace area of the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is located on the site of the former television station and transmitter operated by John Logie Baird from 1933.
The Indian-head test pattern is a test card that gained widespread adoption during the black-and-white television broadcasting era as an aid in the calibration of television equipment. It features a drawing of a Native American wearing a headdress surrounded by numerous graphic elements designed to test different aspects of broadcast display. The card was created by RCA to be the standard image for their TK-1 monoscope, a simple video camera capable of producing only the image embedded within it. The pattern was introduced in 1939 and over the following two decades became a fixture of television broadcast across North America in 525-line resolution and abroad in 525- and 625-line resolution until it was made obsolete by the rise of color television in the 1960s.
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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The 405-line monochrome analogue television broadcasting system was the first fully electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting. The number of television lines influences the image resolution, or quality of the picture.
Sandy Heath transmitting station is a television and radio broadcasting station in England, located between Sandy, Bedfordshire and Potton near the B1042. It is owned by Arqiva, formerly NTL Broadcast. It was built in 1965, originally broadcasting Anglia Television on VHF 405-lines, UHF with 625-line services of BBC2, BBC1, and Anglia Television being added by January 1971. It carried Channel 4 and Channel 5 from their launch days, Channel 5 at lower power than the other four services. Today it broadcasts digital television on the DTT platform as digital switchover took place on 13 April 2011. On 17 June 2018, as part of the 700MHz clearance, Com5 moved from Ch52 to Ch36, Com7 moved from Ch32 to Ch55 and Com8 moved from Ch34 to Ch56
ETP-1 was a test card designed and used by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). After test transmissions from the IBA's Engineering Regional Operations Centre (ROC) in Croydon from 1978 it was phased in on ITV over a period starting from 1979, replacing, in different ITV regions: Test Card F, Test Card G and full screen height EBU colour bars. After ITV went 24 hours in 1988, the card ceased to be seen on the channel. It was used for both 625-line PAL and 405-line monochrome broadcasts.
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.
Service Information was a weekday broadcast on BBC2 of engineering information for the radio and television trade. These announcements were made by the BBC continuity announcers of the time and were read over basic in-vision captions. The "programme" was broadcast on BBC2 during trade test transmissions and was not aimed at the general public. It was not billed in the schedule. They went out three times a day 10.00a.m., 11.30a.m., and 2.30p.m. From 20th January 1975, the bulletin was broadcast just once each day, at 10.30a.m.. The transmission times of these bulletins was moved if other programmes were being shown. For example, the Wednesday broadcast from October 1977 onwards was aired at 11.30 a.m. due to Gharbar being shown at 10.20 a.m. The final broadcast took place on 23 December 1982. The IBA had a similar programme called Engineering Announcements.
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.
The launch ident was a television station identification used by BBC Two between their launch night in 1964 and the introduction of colour in 1967.
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.
UEIT - Universal Electronic Test Chart is a Soviet/Russian test card, designed to test TVs operating in the analogue SECAM colour standard.