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Test Card Memory Lane |
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Test Card Memory Lane |
This is a selection of Test Cards and similar images used by UK and European television channels from the 1970s onward. I've tried to include every single pattern I can remember being shown, though I've not created images for all the minor variations that existed.
Back on firmer ground with this one, the BBC Schools Pie Chart. This wasn't used as a test card per se; it was shown between schools programmes until 1974, when the fondly-remembred Schools Diamond was introduced. But it looks like a simple test card, and it's possibly the earliest piece of imagery of this type that I can remember seeing on TV. Apparently it was shown for one minute at a time, followed by a clock with just a second hand for another minute, but I don't ever remember seeing the clock!
Actually there is some debate about exactly when the Pie Chart was withdrawn and the Diamond began. I can remember seeing both of them at least once in my first year or so at school, which began in April 1974, but others remember earlier occurrences of the Diamond. My own theory is that the Diamond was introduced and the Pie Chart withdrawn both during the 1973-74 academic year, with a period of overlap. Possibly, the Diamond may have been used before colour programmes and the Pie Chart before b/w ones. Complete speculation, natch.
Another test card-like schools caption, this time the ITV Light Spots. This was used in the early to mid 1970s and was accompanied by music. In the last minute before each programme started, it was replaced by a countdown clock.
The last time the test card was shown on both BBC1 and 2 was in the early mornings of 3 and 4 December 2003; the two times before this were on 15 December 2002 and August 2000. In all cases this was to allow network resilience / rebroadcast testing (where various methods of relaying signals from one transmitter to another are switched in and out). The 2003 episode followed closesly on from a power cut at BBC TV Centre. BBC1 shortened its usual overnight BBC News 24 rebroadcast to accommodate, while BBC2 slotted tests into an available overnight programme gap (except in 2003 an hour-long programme was postponed). This is an account of the 2000 test.
BBC1 showed Pages from Ceefax from about 02.00 to 03.00, while BBC2 showed Test Card J. As you can see, this is based on TCF but with a few subtle differences e. g. the green spot in the top centre region, and the un-retouched colour of the doll. The dots on the grey scale - now doubled in number - also flash on and off every 2 seconds. At approx. 03.00 BBC2 went back to programmes and BBC1 switched to TCJ.
Actually, to be more precise, BBC2 showed this for a few minutes to start with - the widescreen Test Card W. I've cropped the image here to show how it looked on my non-widescreen TV, but as you can see it's basically the same as J with extra columns of cells inserted, and a few different features around the edges. (The latter modifications were made because only digital signals allow true widescreen pictures; the old features are of limited use in checking digital signals.)
Sadly, while the Ceefax pages had music, there was none with the test cards; just the usual 1KHz tone on BBC1 and 440Hz tone on BBC2 (although 1KHz tone was used with TCW).
The tests on 3 and 4 December 2003 consisted entirely of TCJ with 1KHz GLITS tone on both channels, except for a few silent minutes of TCW on BBC2 on the first night. BBC2 started at 0400 and BBC2 some time later, when the end of programmes allowed; both channels reverted to programmes at 0500. The tone was rather odd; 13/8 time with a 'jump' about every 31 seconds, joining two periods of steady tone with 7 GLITS cycles between them. Huh? Sounded like a short WAV file on loop - you do get a tiny pause when you do this.
--------L-R-R--------L-R-R--------L-R-R--------L-R-R--------L-R-R--------L-R-R--------L-R-R--------
On 3 December, the BBC2 TCJ was accompanied by the [B][B][C] TWO DOG ("digitally originated graphic", though this term is only applied to on-screen permanent channel identification). This DOG is normally shown at this time anyway, as a for-some-reason-necessary accompaniment to their Learning Zone programmes. On 4 December, the DOG was absent for most of the time, but was briefly faded up and down at least twice during the hour of tests.
The eary hours of 9 January 2004 also saw TCW and TCJ on BBC2, and TCJ on BBC1. TCW was broadcast in 14:9, allowing more of the pattern to be seen than in the above picture. An even odder variation of GLITS tone occurred with TCJ on BBC2 - mostly the old, slow 440Hz tone but with a short period of steady 1KHz spliced into every seventh cycle!
Both TCJ and TCW were also seen on BBC1 between 03.00 and 04.00 on 27 July 2001, with periods of reduced power on BBC2 but no test cards. TCW made another brief appearance in the small hours of 14 August 2001 in a programme gap, but unscheduled, and without even a closedown announcement. It also occupied around 20 minutes of Pages from Ceefax time from about 02.20 on 22 June 2003. Both cards crop up from time to time during transmission problems, but only rarely.
Now onto a few test patterns I've seen while on holiday in Europe. First, here's a French version of colourbars from 1981. On the occasion I saw these colourbars, the audio was neither music nor tone but a voice. Sadly my knowledge of French was even smaller than it is now, so I don't know what they were saying. It could have been engineering information; it could have been a radio station rebroadcast. (The latter has happened in the UK before now, during industrial action by someone or other in the late 1970s; Radio 4 was relayed over the test card.)
French version of the PM5544 test card, also from 1981. As far as I remember this is correct in omitting the station identification, and my battered old Hamer & Smith corroborates this. French television, like British, also appeared to show a fair amount of test cards during the morning and afternoon in those days. Apparently this, or something very similar, is still in use today by France 3, with identification along the lines of "RES FRANCE 3", with the audio coming from radio station France Info.
Spotted in the Blue Bar, Cala something-or-other, Majorca in 1984. The date and time are rough guesses - we spent two weeks there (or rather in the Hotel Tobago across the road) in the school summer holidays.
None of these images are screen captures. Some of them were created using version 2.3 of FML's Test Card Maker with some additional processing via MGI PhotoSuite. These pages are for information purposes only. Copyright on images, where it exists, rests with the original owners.
You can download the latest version of Test Card Maker for free here.
If you have any further info about the test transmissions covered here, corrections or clarifications, please let me know*. Thanks for info received so far: Malcolm Robb, Keith Twort, Peter Vince, Mark Prosser, Chris Youlden.
( * E-mail address is bodged to hide it from spammers. Please change the text in square brackets to an "at" sign. )
