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PAL + explained!

The programmes are produced in 16:9 using 16:9 cameras - as the BBC, ITV, C4 C5 etc do for their 16:9 digital broadcasts. PAL+ programme production required 16:9 cameras or film to be telecined to 16:9 rather than 4:3.

However PAL+ was designed to send these 16:9 programmes to TVs using the existing PAL analogue transmitters, and in a way that let 4:3 viewers watch the same transmissions. Channel Four and a few ITV companies broadcast some test transmissions in the mid to late 90s - prior to the launch of digital television transmissions (Channel Four had recently upgraded their analogue transmitter distribution system so were able to put PAL+ coders at their transmitter sites)

The system worked by broadcasting 16:9 programmes in 16:9 deep letterbox in 4:3. This gave you thick black bars top and bottom of screen. However these bars were not really just black. They were black in terms of the brightness part of the signal, but they had a colour signal (which you could see if you turned up the brightness and colour controls on your TV as a dark blue-y picture).

This signal (broadcast using the PAL colour carrier - but actually containing luminance info!) contained extra picture information (luminance only) which a PAL+ widescreen TV set could add to the normal letterbox picture, to make it sharper than a normal widescreen set would if it did a normal zoom on the 16:9 letterbox.

The picture was a bit better than a straight 16:9 zoom - and the PAL+ information survived on S-VHS recordings. However the PAL+ decoderwas expensive, and the picture was nowhere near as good as an anamorphic 16:9 picture. Most people bought non PAL+ widescreen sets.

The BBC evaluated it and decided it was not worth using - probably because it would have required a huge upgrade to the transmission network (some older analogue transmitters would have needed replacement as well) The BBC decided that digital component transmission (without the colour / luminance interference present on PAL) of a 16:9 anamorphic picture was the way forward...

Another feature that arrived with PAL+, and which C4 still use on its own on analogue (they don't do PAL+ anymore), is WSS (Widescreen Switching Signal) on analogue. This triggered PAL+ (and non PAL+ WSS equipped) widescreen TVs to zoom in to 16:9 letterbox broadcasts, and drop back to 4:3 viewing for 4:3 full-frame material.

The first BBC programme I know of that the BBC made in 16:9 that was actually broadcast on BBC One was 'The Ginger Tree'. This was made by the BBC and NHK (the Japanese state broadcaster) in the Japanese 1125 line 16:9 (once 15:9) HiVision HDTV system, in the late 1980s.

It was broadcast in 16:9 HDTV in Japan - but I can't remember if it was shown 16:9 or 14:9 letterbox in the UK, or in full-frame 4:3... (I know it was converted from 1125/60 to 525/60 to 625/50 as there was no 1125/60 to 625/50 converter available at the time...)

The first BBC produced 16:9 video production I can remember actually being broadcast in 16:9 letterbox was a 1250 line HDTV test feature called 'We return you to the studio' or something similar. It was made in the then European 1250line HDTV format, and shown on BBC Two in Autumn 1990, between Open University programmes. It was used to demonstrate HDTV at international trade shows - so contained no dialogue, just music. It featured a group of teenagers wandering around the BBCs original studio centre at Alexandra Palace (also once home to the Open University TV Unit?) - where 'The world's first regular high-definition television service started in 1936'... The days when high definition was 405 lines!

(Well the original TV transmissions were 30 lines...)

[quote] I remember one of the first programmes was The House of Elliot, because of the huge amounts of complaints Points of View got about the black bars. [quote]

I don't thinks thats quite right... a lot of programme producers decided they liked the look of widescreen - so had their pictures cropped to make them look more cinematic. I worked on a number of promo's for House of Elliot - the masters I worked with were certainly not widecsreen, they were 4x3 with the artificial black letterboxes added.

The same, from memory, was true of the early Bally K's and so on.

Thanks for all that noggin - you're a mine of information! Now I just need to get hold of a widescreen set and a digital service, and I'm happy...

[quote] JP on 2:30 pm on Feb. 2, 2002
[quote]  I remember one of the first programmes was The House of Elliot, because of the huge amounts of complaints Points of View got about the black bars.

Were you dealing with rushes/studio recordings or edited masters out of interest?

Suspect you're right about The House of Elliot - but some early 16:9 film and video productions were ARCed to 14/15:9 letterbox in the edit, so the final master was 14/15:9 letterbox in a 4:3 frame, even though the material was shot in 15:9 or 16:9.