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Test pattern

A test card, also known as a test pattern, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (often at startup and closedown). Used since the earliest TV broadcasts, test cards were originally physical cards at which a television camera was pointed, and such cards are still often used for calibration, alignment, and matching of cameras and camcorders. Test patterns used for calibrating or troubleshooting the downstream signal path are these days generated by test signal generators, which do not depend on the correct configuration (and presence) of a camera. Digitally generated cards allow vendors, viewers and television stations to adjust their equipment for optimal functionality.

The test card usually has a set of line-up patterns to enable television cameras and receivers to be adjusted to show the picture correctly. (Compare with SMPTE color bars.) Most modern test cards include a set of calibrated color bars which will produce a characteristic pattern of "dot landings" on a vectorscope, allowing chroma and tint to be precisely adjusted between generations of videotape or network feeds. SMPTE bars—and several other test cards—include analog black (a flat waveform at 7.5 IRE, or the NTSC setup level), full white (100IRE), and a "sub-black", or "blacker-than-black" (at 0 IRE), which represents the lowest low-frequency transmission voltage permissible in NTSC broadcasts (though the negative excursions of the colourburst signal may go below 0 IRE). Between the colour bars and proper adjustment of brightness and contrast controls to the limits of perception of the first sub-black bar, an analogue receiver (or other equipment such as VTRs) can be adjusted to provide impressive fidelity. The most famous Test Card shown in the UK since 1967 and also shown in some other countries is Test Card F, which features a little girl (Carole Hersee) and a clown doll in a circle in the centre of the picture.

Test cards are also typically broadcast with library music (see below), a sine wave reference tone, or the relayed broadcasting of a radio station owned by the same broadcaster. There is now a cult following for test card music.

BBC test cards[link]

BBC test cards are identified by a letter. The most famous British test card is Test Card F which incorporates a colour photograph of Carole Hersee (daughter of BBC engineer George Hersee) playing noughts and crosses with a doll, used on the BBC and ITV from the beginning of colour broadcasts in the late 1960s.^[1] It was later updated as Test Card J, and for widescreen broadcasts as Test Card W. Test Card F has often been spoofed by comedians.^[2]

Decline[link]

Formerly a common sight, test cards are now only rarely seen outside of television studios, post-production, and distribution facilities. In particular, they are no longer intended to assist viewers in calibration of television sets. Several things have led to their demise for this purpose:

• Modern microcontroller-controlled analogue televisions rarely if ever need adjustment, so test cards are much less important than previously. Likewise, modern cameras and camcorders seldom need adjustment for technical accuracy, though they are often adjusted to compensate for scene light levels, and for various artistic effects.
• Use of digital interconnect standards, such as CCIR 601 and SMPTE 292M, which operate without the non-linearities and other issues inherent to analogue broadcasting, do not introduce colour shifts or brightness changes; thus the requirement to detect and compensate for them using this reference signal has been virtually eliminated. (Compare with the obsolescence of stroboscopes as used to adjust the speed of record players). On the other hand, digital test signal generators do include test signals which are intended to stress the digital interface, and many sophisticated generators allow the insertion of jitter, bit errors, and other pathological conditions that can cause a digital interface to fail.
• Likewise, use of digital broadcasting standards such as the DVB and ATSC eliminates the issues introduced by modulation and demodulation of analogue signals.
• Test cards including large circles were used to confirm the linearity of the set's deflection systems. As solid-state components replaced vacuum tubes in receiver deflection circuits, linearity adjustments were less frequently required (few newer sets have user-adjustable "VERT SIZE" and "VERT LIN" controls, for example). In LCD and other deflectionless displays, the linearity is a function of the display panel's manufacturing quality; for the display to work, the tolerances will already be far tighter than human perception.
• In developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the financial imperatives of commercial television broadcasting mean that air-time is now typically filled with programmes and commercials (such as infomercials) 24 hours a day, and non-commercial broadcasters have to match this.

Test cards and other semi-static programming and their use around the world today:

• In North America, most test cards such as the famous Indian Head test card of the 1950s and 1960s have long been relegated to history. The SMPTE color bars occasionally turn up, but with most North American broadcasters now following a 24-hour schedule, these too have become a rare sight. Many Canadian Broadcasting Corporation stations broadcast a modified form of the SMPTE bars (with an additional modulated ramp at the top and a CBC logo animation in place of the Q block) late at night until late 2006, when the network moved to 24-hour broadcasting.
• When there are in fact no standard programmes being broadcast on the channels that do not have 24-hour programming, other, more informative features such as educational shows, e.g. the BBC Learning Zone, and teletext-type programmes such as Pages from Ceefax, ITV Nightscreen and 4-Tel On View are often broadcast, the latter type acting as the better test-card substitute as they just roll continuously.
• Australian national broadcaster SBS airs Weatherwatch, a weather map accompanied by music from albums sold by SBS and a ticker at the bottom of the screen during the early hours of the morning.
• Australian community broadcaster Channel 31 in Melbourne previously aired Fishcam, the output of a videocamera aimed at a fish tank.
• Some Philippine cable networks replace test cards with an advertisement showing the product, "a reason to go to sleep" and the time when the station will sign on.
• In Singapore, since 2004, instead of showing test cards, television channels usually air radio channels while showing their station ID at the same time.
• In Thailand, Channel 5, Channel 9 and Channel 7 broadcast the advertising program (Innovations and Quantum Television) instead, Channel 7 does not broadcast Quantum Television whole night, after Quantum Television ran for 20 minutes and it is still being closing time, it will turn to the testcard, with royal anthem before switching. Channel owned by NBN (NBN1-4 and NTV) does not broadcast advertising programs since NBN refuse from broadcasting them. NBT and TVThai does not broadcast them either, because owned by government, but when TVThai still being ITV and TITV, it broadcast.

On television networks and stations in most of the Third World countries, test cards are still seen because most television networks and stations in those countries do not have 24-hour programming.

Use of test patterns and test cards is still common within television production facilities. Many of these still have analogue infrastructure, and currently as of March 2006^[update] analogue transmissions are still found worldwide (though the United States is currently scheduled to require broadcasters to switch off the NTSC service in 2009—NTSC may still be a viable transmission means for cable television for several more years). Many artistic settings are still made by using test cards or test patterns in conjunction with devices like waveform monitors and vectorscopes (most modern waveform monitors include vectorscope capability), and while digital transmission eliminates many of the "analogue" effects associated with analogue television, digital broadcasting has its own set of issues.

Gallery[link]

UK Testcard timeline[link]

Year	Notes	Channel(s)	Image
1936–1939	The first publicly broadcast testcard. It was a simple line and circle broadcast using Baird's 30 line system, and was used to synchronise the mechanical scanning system.	BBC Television Service	1936-1939
1947–1948	The second publicly broadcast testcard. It had more specific details and was referred to as Testcard A.	BBC Television Service	File:Testcard A.jpg 1947-1948
1948	Referred to as Testcard B. Used behind the scenes but never broadcast.	None	File:Test B.jpg 1948 (behind the scenes only)
1948–1964	Testcard C is released, with more specific details than Testcard B.	BBC Television Service	File:Testcard c.jpg 1948-1964
1955	The ITA broadcasts an unlabelled testcard on ITV.	ITV
1955–1960	A revised version of Testcard C is broadcast on ITV.	ITV
1960–1964	The ITA "Picasso" testcard is released.	ITV	File:TC P.jpg 1960-1964
1964–1985	Testcard D is released, and is the final testcard to be released for the 405-line format. Music as well as test tones were regularly used to accompany this image on BBC1 and ITV.	BBC1 ITV	File:Testcard D.jpg 1964-1985 (405-line only)
1964	Testcard E is released to comply with the 625-line format. Numerous television vendors complained that the image made on screen was unattractive - its sinusoidal frequency gratings looked soft - and was therefore only used for 5 days before being replaced.	BBC1 BBC2 ITV	File:Testcard E.jpg 1964 (625-line only)
1964–1969	Once testcard E was withdrawn, the BBC released a modified version of Testcard C with more specific details on the inside circle.	BBC1 BBC2(1964–1967) ITV	File:Testcard E2.jpg 1964-1969
1967–1984	Testcard F, the most famous and used testcard, is released by the BBC to coincide with colour transmissions that started that year on 1 July on BBC2. Only limited programmes were available in colour from the start. The full output became colour on BBC2 on 2 December the same year. BBC1 and ITV started colour in 1969, and began use of this testcard, phasing out Testcard E. It features a picture of Carole Hersee playing noughts and crosses.	BBC1 (1969–1984) BBC2 ITV (1969–1979)	File:TCF.jpg 1967-1984
1970s	Testcard G, a variant of the Philips PM5544 test pattern, is created. It was occasionally seen on BBC1 and BBC2 during the 1970s.	BBC1 BBC2
1979–1992	The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) - Independent Television Authority (ITA) prior to 1972, introduce ETP-1/Electronic Test Pattern One to replace Testcard F within the ITV regions. ETP-1 was also extensively used by Channel 4 and S4C in the run up to the launch of these channels in November 1982 — using 'IBA:CH4'/'IBA:S4C' captioning instead of the 'IBA' captioning used by ITV. ETP-1 became a common sight on British television in the 1980s up until ITV started broadcasting 24 hours a day in 1988. Channel 4/S4C continued to use ETP-1 - using 'NTL:CH4'/'NTL:S4C' captioning from 1990 after the Broadcasting Act 1990 saw the privatisation of the IBA's transmitter network and sale to National Transcommunications Limited (NTL). However ETP-1 disappeared in 1992 when Channel 4 simply broadcast its teletext service 4-Tel on View whilst off air — it later began 24 hour broadcasting in 1997, with S4C simply broadcasting black screen and tone whilst off-air.	ITV (1979–1988) Channel 4 (1982–1992) S4C (1982–1992)
1984–1999	Testcard F is converted to an electronic format. On 4 October 1997, the BBC logo on the testcard was changed to match the current logo. It was removed from BBC One a month later due to the launch of BBC News which is now seen overnight on it.	BBC1 (1984–1997) BBC One (1997) BBC2 (1984–1997) BBC Two (1997–1999)	File:Testcard F.jpg 1984-1997
1999–2012	Testcard J is released, replacing Testcard F. Testcard J is a modified version of F, with improvements including an improved centre picture and a dot in the white area at the top. In 2000, Testcard W is released, which is similar but formatted in 16:9 widescreen. Usage of regular testcards on BBC Two gradually started to decline during the early 2000s before regular use was discontinued in 2004. It is still seen occasionally on BBC Two, around mid-January each year. The usage of testcards in the United Kingdom will completely drop in 2012.	BBC Two	File:Testcard J.jpg 1999-2000

Test patterns for photocopiers[link]

A lesser-known kind of test pattern is used for the calibration of photocopiers.^[3][4] Photocopier test patterns are physical sheets that are photocopied, with the difference in the resulting photocopy revealing any telltale deviations or defects in the machine's ability to copy.

In numismatics[link]

Television has had such an impact in today's life, that it has been the main motif for numerous collectors' coins and medals. One of the most recent ones is The 50 Years of Television commemorative coin minted on March 9, 2005 in Austria. The obverse of the coin shows a "test pattern", while the reverse shows several milestones in the history of television.

Monoscope[link]

A monoscope.

Close-up, showing test card target.

Rather than physical test cards, which had to be televised using a camera, an alternative method was to use a cathode ray tube to generate, rather than display, a video signal. Each tube was only capable of generating a single video signal, hence the name.

Essentially similar in construction to an ordinary CRT, the monoscope contained a formed metal target in place of the phosphor coating at its "screen" end and as the electron beam scanned the target, rather than displaying an image, a varying electrical signal was produced generating an image from the etched pattern.

These were fragile, but had advantages over test cards, always being properly framed and in focus. They fell out of use in the 1960s, as they were not able to produce color images.

References[link]

External links[link]

• [1] STMPE Test Pattern rendered in HTML and CSS - Create Commons
• The Test Card Circle Details of the UK's Trade Test Transmissions including the history of the BBC and ITA Test Cards, a look at the music used and full details about the Trade Test Colour Films shown from the late fifties to 1973.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Test patterns

• mire.project - Street art work about television test patterns
• TV Testbild - very informative, but in German language only
• TestVid test card video sequences - Synthetic video test card sequences with moving elements
• Burosch AudioVideo-Technology - advanced HDTV test patterns
• The Test Card Gallery
• Television Test Cards, Tuning Signals, Idents and Clocks
• Barney Wol's website has details of the development of UK testcards F, J and W
• 625.uk.com Flash Files - high quality Adobe Flash examples of almost all British test cards and station idents (the test cards are at the bottom of the page and include C, D, F, J, W and ETP-1)
• Irish TV Testcards - Pictures of Test Cards used by the Irish TV broadcasters RTÉ, TV3 and UTV.
• SVT test cards - Picture gallery of test cards from Swedish Television (SVT), in Swedish
• Russian Test Cards
• Maximum Testcardosity test cards' resources, history and galleries
• equasys Video Test Collection - MPEG-2, H.264, WMV and Flash video test sequences for PAL, NTSC and HDTV video formats.
• Pembers' Ponderings - Features detailed analysis of various test cards from the 30-line era to the present day, inclusive of a collection of various European test cards from 1967 to 1976.
• Taiwan TV Test card in 1990's

This page is not a sandbox and must not be used for test editing. To experiment, go to the Wikipedia Sandbox.

Look up TEST, Test, Tests, testing, or tests in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Test, TEST or Tester may refer to:

• Test (assessment), an assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
  • Physical fitness test
  • Driving test
  • Performance test (assessment)
  • Performance test (bar exam)
• Test match (disambiguation), an international sporting contest
• River Test, a river in England
• The upper part of a four-poster bed
• Tester, a canopy over a tomb or pulpit, also known as a sounding board

Mathematics and statistics[link]

• Statistical test, a statistical procedure aiming to classify the elements of a population
• Statistical hypothesis testing, a method of making statistical decisions using experimental data, particular case of the former

Science and technology[link]

• Concept inventory, an assessment to reveal student thinking on a topic
• test (Unix), a Unix command for evaluating conditional expressions
• TEST (x86 instruction), an x86 assembly language instruction
• Software testing, the process of verifying that a software program works as expected
• Experiment, a part of the scientific method
• Test (biology), the shell of sea urchins and certain microorganisms
• Test method, a definitive procedure that produces a test result
• Chemical test, a procedure designed to prove the existence of, or to quantify, a particular substance
• Psychological testing, the use of behavioral samples to make inferences about an individual
• Physical test, a method for determining characteristics of a product
• Toxicology testing

People[link]

• Desmond Tester (1919–2002)
• John Test (1771–1849)
• Jon Tester (born 1956), junior Senator from Montana, a Democrat
• Ralph Tester, head of the Testery, a British codebreaking station at Bletchley Park
• Ruth Tester (1903–1993)
• Scan Tester (1887–1972), English folk and country musician
• William Tester (born 1960), American novelist
• Zachary Test (born 1989), American rugby union player
• Andrew Martin (1975–2009), professional wrestler who used the ring name "Test"

Media and entertainment[link]

• Tests (album), a 1998 album by The Microphones
• "Tester," a song by Anthrax on the album Stomp 442
• The Tester, a reality show produced by Sony about videogame testing
• Johnny Test, an American/Canadian animated television series

See also[link]

• Legal tests
• Lists of tests
• Quality infrastructure
• The Test (disambiguation)
• example.com

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up card in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Card (from Greek χάρτης - chartēs, "paper, papyrus") primarily refers to an entire or piece of card stock.

Card may refer to:

Small flat objects[link]

As a surname[link]

• Andrew Card, politician, Secretary of Transportation under George H.W. Bush and White House Chief of Staff under George W. Bush
• Orson Scott Card, science fiction author
• David Card, Canadian labour economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley
• Michael Card, American Christian singer-songwriter, author, and radio host

In sports[link]

• Card (sports), the lineup of the matches in an event
• Arizona Cardinals, a National Football League team nicknamed the "Cards"
• St. Louis Cardinals, a Major League Baseball team nicknamed the "Cards"

Other[link]

• Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): card

, in mathematical notation, a function that returns the cardinality of a set

• A tool for carding
• Apple IIe Card, a compatibility card
• Cards (iOS), a card-making application on iOS

As an acronym[link]

• Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development, and Stabilisation (CARDS) programme, the European Union's main financial assistance instrument to the western Balkans
• Caspase recruitment domain or CARD domain, an interaction motif found in a wide array of proteins
• Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases
• Credit CARD Act of 2009 (Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009), signed into law in 2009 by President Obama
• Collegiate Aerial Robotics Demonstration, a competition
• Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters, a non-profit focused on emergency preparedness or underserved communities
• Child Abduction Rapid Deployment, FBI Team

The Card[link]

The Card may refer to:

• The Card, Arnold Bennett's 1911 novel
  • The Card (1922 film), based on the novel
  • The Card (1952 film), based on the novel
  • The Card (musical), based on the novel
• "The Card", an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants (season 6)

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Card"

• All pages with titles containing "Card"

• Card game
• Carding (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.