The Test Card Thread

The most famous test card of all of Broadcasting history, Test card F is 40 Today. The Clown, The Girl, The Blackboard and the Cheesy Music have become a familiar sight on British TV.

The girl in the test card is Carol Hersee, her farther; George hersee is the father of Test card F. He sadly passed away in 2001 but in 2000 he assisted Richard Russel and other BBC engineers to make Test card J and Test card W. Still featuring Carol Hersee

TCF is no longer in existence, but just for your nostalgic pleasure here it is in all it's glory!

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/tcforiginal.jpg

Happy Birthday TCF ! ! !

And apparently its being remade for Sky HD with Myleene Klass replacing Carol Hersee.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/05_02/TestKlass_468x351.jpg (dailymail)

Yes, Myleene confirmed this on yesterday's Loose Women.

Good to see old falsehoods die hard... the x on the noughts and crosses board was only the approximate centre of the screen on TCF, it was only when TCJ and TCW came along that they took the trouble to make it the exact centre.

I wonder if a HD Testcard W will crop up, as when it was designed they made sure that they had an extremely high resolution scan of the picture of Carol Hersee, so it's more than possible.

I would assume there is. Talk has been circulating (albeit uncited) on Wikipedia that Carol appears on the high-definition Test Card X.

Again according to Wikipedia, she then was swept into a love affair with an archer who had travelled in time from the twelfth century AD before being whisked by an evil demon lord far in to the dark depths of Mordath and the firey Mount Ungoth...

I would assume Carol remains on the new HD test card. Its design will probably be similar to Test Card F, perhaps with a few tweaks, some more patterns, etc...

Speaking of which, I love the new Sky card. Awful shame they had to use Myleene Klass instead of a young schoolgirl though...

I wonder if Carol knew when she volunteered for her dad to have that photo taken that she would become the most-seen person on British (and perhaps international) television?

Although the original was a classic, and I like the Myleene Klass version nothing beats this one:

http://www.pembers.freeserve.co.uk/Test-Cards/ITV-Digital.jpg

Was that ever seen on-air, or was it just a promotional image?

Bozz

I think I remember seeing it...off air image for some channel or other.

It was apparently used as an off-air image, but only in the last few months of ITV Digital.

Take a look on YouTube and there is a 16:9 version of Testcard F with Frank Sidebottom and Little Frank that is just superb. Or Sky 203 at 2.00am if you want to see it on TV.

As she said on a Sky News interview, they only expected it to last a few months like all the other test cards, not this long.

Pure brilliance...

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/fr.jpg