Does ITV still use a test card?

Known as the VALID 'testcard' (certainly in the BBC anyway). I think this stands for Vision Audio Lineup Identification. It's a very neat test signal. The key bits of information it includes are Colour Bars, Stereo tone, the circular synch test device and a few lines of text identifying where the signal is coming from. The circular graphic is particularly clever because as well as being an aspect-ratio check, a dot travels around the circle getting to the top when the associated audio blip in the Stereo tone is supposed to happen. It's probably only a matter of time before it gets incorporated into the Testcard - currently BBC HD broadcast TestCard X and the synch test as two separate events (on alternate hours?)

I noticed last week CCA were sending us a Christmas themed ident signal instead of the VALID or 'W' whenever a line didn't have anything booked on it. It has Christmas pres from BBC 1 and 2 from the past few years embedded into the centre of it, and a Merry Christmas message from CCA and ICR.

didn't VALID make an appearance during the RBS tests a few years back?

VALID is a very useful test signal - particularly for contribution circuits - and is neat because it can be recorded and played in from VT if need be, for the AV sync test.

However different types of circuits need different types of "stress test" as they have different weaknesses and failure modes.

I have heard of this VALID test and it would be interesting to see if the BBC would incorporate it into the HD Test Card. I have seen a Satellite test card (with many features similar to all the "classic" test cards) on YouTube that has three moving parts although none of them resemble the VALID test.

There is of course a test card available continuously on the Freeview BBC Mux, Via BBC Red Button. A rather complex routine gets to it via LCN 105, which I seem to have forgotten.

Found it from DS

Freeview's Hidden Testcard

1. Select BBCi channel 105
2. When BBCi appears press yellow within 30 secs
3. Select another channel
4. then select BBCi channel 105
5. When BBCi appears press green within 30 secs
6. Wait until the status page appears
7. Enter 3 - 3 - 5 - 8 - 2.... Red, Green, Yellow, Blue
8. Wait for 30 seconds
9. Test card will appear.

I got it with only doing this!

1. Select BBCi channel 105
2. When BBCi appears press yellow within 30 secs
3. Select another channel
4. then select BBCi channel 105
5. When BBCi appears press green within 30 secs
6. Wait until the status page appears
7. Enter 3 - 3 - 5 - 8

That's it - VALID too many mince pies and the name left my mind!

Christmas themed signals/slides are quite traditional at the beeb, many years ago SCAR had a Wallace and Gromit one with them and a big old fashioned switch and: 'SCAR, ready to switch your circuit'

Two very long-winded ways of doing it.

Try:-

1. Select channel 105
2. Press yellow
3. Select another channel
4. Select channel 105 again
5. Press green
6. Press green again

A VALID test signal is only really useful if you have the VALID unit to feed it into. Otherwise something like the BBC HD A/V sync test signal (with the woodblock audio and animating delay bar), shown alongside the BBC HD Testcard, is more useful.

The downside is that it is a pretty horribly compressed MPEG I frame (I think)