PALplus
Encyclopedia
PALplus is an extension of the PAL
analogue broadcasting system for transmitting 16:9
programs without sacrificing vertical resolution. It followed experiences with the HD-MAC
and D2-MAC, standards that were incompatible with existing receivers but featured a 16:9 aspect ratio. It was developed in Germany (University of Dortmund in cooperation with German terrestrial broadcasters and European and Japanese manufacturers.
A standard PAL receiver will display the 16:9 image in letterbox format with 432 active lines, while a PALplus receiver can use extra information hidden in the black bars above and below the image to recreate 576 lines of vertical resolution.
A special signal
tells the receiver when PALplus is in use, and also whether the original content was interlaced ("Camera mode" 576i50) or progressive scan
ned ("Film mode" 576p25). An additional signal can enable a "Ghost
Cancellation" feature.
A separate feature related to PALplus is ColourPlus, which improves colour decoding performance.
is ignored.
The PALplus standard comprises three extensions to standard PAL:
16:9 picture with 576 lines down to 432 lines, so that the picture appears letterbox
ed on a regular PAL TV set. For luminance, the scaling is done using a pair of matching low-pass and high-pass filters, with the low-pass result appearing in the broadcast. One out of every 4 lines of the high-pass result is then hidden in the remaining 144 black lines at the top and bottom of the picture, using the U
colour subcarrier. The filtering is such that this is enough to restore the complete 576 line resolution. The use of the colour subcarrier means the signals sometimes appear as blue and yellow patterns on a regular PAL TV set. The 16:9 PAL-plus receiver combines 432 visible lines plus 144 helper lines into 576 new visible lines.
In Film mode (progressive scan
), the operation is performed on a per-frame basis, while in Camera mode (interlaced) the operation is performed per-field.
between 2 fields, in order to give a cleaner Y/C separation in the PAL-plus receiver. It is used with signals with high horizontal luminance frequencies (3 Mhz) that share the spectrum with the chrominance signals. Colour pictures on both standard and PAL Plus receivers are enhanced.
For progressive "Film mode" material, "Fixed" Colour-Plus is used, as there is no motion between the image fields.
For camera based images, "Motion Adaptive Color-Plus" (MACP) is used based on movement.
tells the receiver whether 4:3/16:9/PALplus is in use, and also whether the original content was interlaced ("Camera mode") or progressive scan
ned ("Film mode"). An additional signal can enable a "Ghost
Cancellation" feature. The bandwidth of these bits is low enough to be recorded on VHS and allow the receiver to switch to the proper format.
Some PALPlus compatible sets:
Most widescreen sets without any PAL-plus processing will switch the display format automatically between 4:3 and 16:9, based on the signaling bits. These sets will display only the centre 432 lines of the 4:3 image, to fill all of the 16:9 frame.
, the Flemish public broadcasting service VRT
has a policy that all of its self-created TV programmes are broadcast in PALplus. For example the news is broadcast daily in PALPlus, as are almost all of the weekly scheduled shows. VRT does however always respect the original ratio of the footage. So new films and series are usually broadcast in PALplus. The commercial TV station VTM
also broadcasts a lot in PALplus. The VTM news for example is also broadcast in PALplus. So are the commercials. Special shows and films are always broadcast in PALplus too. VTM tends to change 4:3 footage to 16:9 too. Even the third broadcasting organisation SBS Belgium
with its stations VT4
and VijfTV
broadcast in PALplus for all of their new productions and they also broadcast the news and the commercials in P+.
The Walloon public broadcasting service RTBF
broadcasts bought 16:9 programmes in PALplus, like films, but chooses to create their own programmes in 4:3. Walloon commercial TV station RTL-TVi now broadcasts almost all its shows in PALPlus and tends to convert its old shows to 16:9 too.
all public broadcasters (ARD
, ZDF
, etc) comply with this standard. However, private broadcasters (RTL
, Pro Sieben, etc) have shown no interest in either this standard or in the 16:9 format.
Pay-per-view channels such as those on Sky often broadcast in 16:9, but use a different standard that requires another kind of decoder.
the public broadcasters used PALplus until 2005 but have stopped using it because they preferred digital television (anamorphic widescreen) over PALplus. The public broadcasters and all the major commercial stations have a policy of broadcasting their own and new shows in widescreen, this isn't converted to PALplus on the analogue signal of the cable operators. As cable is the most widespread form of receiving television in the Netherlands the system isn't used anymore. Terrestrial analogue signals stopped in November 2006 in this country.
, the private broadcaster TVI began broadcasting movies in PALplus in 1994, but some years after it left the standard behind.
The public broadcaster RTP
started using the format in 5/12/1997.
The system was used to broadcast selected programs (about five programs each day) and some widescreen movies on analog terrestrial broadcasts. Cable distributors occasionally strip the signal of the WSS bits, rendering the system inoperative. Also, although Digital Terrestrial Television broadcasts have started, there is no dedicated anamorphic simulcast for the digital channels. Therefore, PALPlus over terrestrial analog PAL broadcasts remained the only source of 576 lines widescreen TV in Portugal.
Since the middle of 2010 PALPlus was dropped in favor of regular 16:9 letterbox, because the system caused considerable image degradation (with an effective horizontal resolution of only about ~400px compared to 720px of a digital SDTV image) when used on digital transmissions.
, the commercial broadcaster MTV3
started broadcasting the youth music program Jyrki in PALplus format on 1997-08-18, but the experiment ended when the program ended some four years later. Now both MTV and the public broadcaster YLE have switched to digital TV technology.
, there are still sporadic PALplus broadcasts, on the national television (E.R.T. - Hellenic Radio Television). Through the '90s there were few attempts from commercial broadcasters to adopt the system, but they all failed to gain popularity.
Because of the nature of ERT's broadcasting
equipment,
events and documentaries shot by ERT in PALPlus are still broadcast as such, as they leave control room to be distributed.
However, PALplus reaching audiences is a different story.
PALplus is not preserved when content is distributed via NOVA
, due to heavy MPEG encoding since WSS signaling
and additional information embedded in PALplus are seriously degraded
to the extent that renders them no longer decodable.
As some of the repeaters of ERT's channels are fed via OTE
(Greek public telecom provider) in uncompressed form over terrestrial links, and others are fed via NOVA
(Greece's only satellite platform) it depends on each repeater's feed source whether the content terrestrially broadcast (VHF - UHF) is PALplus or not.
, the Catalan public television, TV3
, trialed the PALplus format in the late 1990s, with a weekly broadcast of a film in this format. Other public regional stations (like Galicia's TVG) tested the format too, but after these trials the technology was dropped and 16:9 digital broadcasts were not introduced until 2007.
, Channel 4
broadcast selected films as PALplus during the late 1990s. Some programmes, including Fifteen to one
and the omnibus edition of Brookside
were also broadcast this way. All of the six main broadcasters, BBC
, ITV
, Channel 4
, Five, Sky and Virgin Media, now all broadcast in anamorphic widescreen on digital.
, that was HDTV
and 16:9 capable (up to 2048×1152 picture resolution), twice the number of available lines in PAL. As a transitional standard, D2-MAC was established. Like HD-MAC, it is 16:9
ready, but with the same number of lines that PAL uses. When D2-MAC failed due to being an incompatible system with existing sets, the PALplus norm was introduced as an attempt to create a compatible widescreen
EDTV
transmission format.
Initially, PALplus was the name of a strategy group founded in 1989 in order to develop an enhanced system for terrestrial transmission compatible with standard-PAL. In the beginning, the group consisted of the public broadcasting corporations of Germany (ARD and ZDF), Austria(ORF), Switzerland (SRG) and the United Kingdom (BBC and UKIB, United Kingdom Independent Broadcasters) together with the consumer electronics manufacturers Grundig, Nokia, Philips and Thomson. Sony as well as the Spanish and Portuguese broadcasters joined the group later on.
At the 1993 International Consumer Electronics Exhibition in Berlin, the first experimental PALplus broadcasts began. At the same year, the European Union approved a plan to support the production and broadcast of 16:9 programs.
In 1994 broadcasts began adopting the format and Nokia launched the first PALplus TV set in Germany.
In 1995 one of the four big Korean electronics manufacturers, Samsung, joined the PALplus consortium.
On January 1996, the PALplus board published the specifications of the standard in order to support the further dissemination of this standard for wide-screen transmissions. After German broadcasters started to broadcast some of their programmes in PAL+, the PALplus board ended its work at the end of that same year.
At the beginning of 1998, PALplus programmes were broadcast on a regular basis in nine European countries, which made PALplus the mostly used standard for 16:9 transmissions in Europe.
For all this, the takeup of PALplus has been marginal, and the future of this standard does not look very bright, since broadcasters are switching to digital television
broadcasting (DVB).
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
analogue broadcasting system for transmitting 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
programs without sacrificing vertical resolution. It followed experiences with the HD-MAC
HD-MAC
HD-MAC was a proposed broadcast television systems standard by the European Commission in 1986 . It was an early attempt by the EEC to provide High-definition television in Europe. It was a complex mix of analogue signal , multiplexed with digital sound...
and D2-MAC, standards that were incompatible with existing receivers but featured a 16:9 aspect ratio. It was developed in Germany (University of Dortmund in cooperation with German terrestrial broadcasters and European and Japanese manufacturers.
A standard PAL receiver will display the 16:9 image in letterbox format with 432 active lines, while a PALplus receiver can use extra information hidden in the black bars above and below the image to recreate 576 lines of vertical resolution.
A special signal
Widescreen signaling
In television technology, widescreen signaling is a digital stream embedded in the TV signal describing qualities of the broadcast, in particular the intended aspect ratio of the image...
tells the receiver when PALplus is in use, and also whether the original content was interlaced ("Camera mode" 576i50) or progressive scan
Progressive scan
Progressive scanning is a way of displaying, storing, or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence...
ned ("Film mode" 576p25). An additional signal can enable a "Ghost
Ghosting (television)
In television, a ghost is a replica of the transmitted image, offset in position, that is super-imposed on top of the main image on an analogue broadcast.-Common causes:Common causes of ghosts are:...
Cancellation" feature.
A separate feature related to PALplus is ColourPlus, which improves colour decoding performance.
Operation
Without PALplus, a 16:9 presentation has only 432 lines of vertical resolution. This reproduces noticeably less detail than the 576 lines used for 4:3 broadcasts. A fully decoded PALplus broadcast restores the 576 line vertical resolution. For compatibility reasons, the horizontal bandwidth remains at 5.0 MHz. This means a PALplus signal provides no extra horizontal resolution to compensate for the image being stretched across a wider screen. The result is a horizontal resolution that is 73% of the vertical resolution, or 51% when the Kell factorKell factor
The Kell factor, named after RCA engineer Raymond D. Kell, is a parameter used to limit the bandwidth of a sampled image signal to avoid the appearance of beat frequency patterns when displaying the image in a discrete display devices, usually taken to be 0.7. The number was first measured in 1934...
is ignored.
The PALplus standard comprises three extensions to standard PAL:
Vertical helper
A broadcaster creates a PALplus signal by scaling an anamorphicAnamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
16:9 picture with 576 lines down to 432 lines, so that the picture appears letterbox
Letterbox
Letterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes above and below it; these mattes are part of the image...
ed on a regular PAL TV set. For luminance, the scaling is done using a pair of matching low-pass and high-pass filters, with the low-pass result appearing in the broadcast. One out of every 4 lines of the high-pass result is then hidden in the remaining 144 black lines at the top and bottom of the picture, using the U
YUV
YUV is a color space typically used as part of a color image pipeline. It encodes a color image or video taking human perception into account, allowing reduced bandwidth for chrominance components, thereby typically enabling transmission errors or compression artifacts to be more efficiently...
colour subcarrier. The filtering is such that this is enough to restore the complete 576 line resolution. The use of the colour subcarrier means the signals sometimes appear as blue and yellow patterns on a regular PAL TV set. The 16:9 PAL-plus receiver combines 432 visible lines plus 144 helper lines into 576 new visible lines.
In Film mode (progressive scan
Progressive scan
Progressive scanning is a way of displaying, storing, or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence...
), the operation is performed on a per-frame basis, while in Camera mode (interlaced) the operation is performed per-field.
Colour-plus (or Clean PAL)
The PAL colour carrier is modulated making use of correlationCorrelation
In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence....
between 2 fields, in order to give a cleaner Y/C separation in the PAL-plus receiver. It is used with signals with high horizontal luminance frequencies (3 Mhz) that share the spectrum with the chrominance signals. Colour pictures on both standard and PAL Plus receivers are enhanced.
For progressive "Film mode" material, "Fixed" Colour-Plus is used, as there is no motion between the image fields.
For camera based images, "Motion Adaptive Color-Plus" (MACP) is used based on movement.
Signaling bits
A special WSS signalWidescreen signaling
In television technology, widescreen signaling is a digital stream embedded in the TV signal describing qualities of the broadcast, in particular the intended aspect ratio of the image...
tells the receiver whether 4:3/16:9/PALplus is in use, and also whether the original content was interlaced ("Camera mode") or progressive scan
Progressive scan
Progressive scanning is a way of displaying, storing, or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence...
ned ("Film mode"). An additional signal can enable a "Ghost
Ghosting
Ghosting may refer to:* ghosting , a form of identity theft, whereby a person takes on the identity of a deceased person* ghosting , a double image when receiving a distorted or multipath input signal in analog television broadcasting* motion blur, "ghosting" is a term often used when slow response...
Cancellation" feature. The bandwidth of these bits is low enough to be recorded on VHS and allow the receiver to switch to the proper format.
PAL-plus compatible sets
The standard permits using the mark "PAL-plus" if just the vertical helper reconstruction implemented, with Colour-plus being optional.Some PALPlus compatible sets:
- GrundigGrundigGrundig AG is a German manufacturer of consumer electronics for home entertainment which transferred to Turkish control in 2004-2007. Established in 1945 in Nuremberg by Max Grundig, the company changed hands several times before becoming part of the Turkish Koç Holding group...
: MFW82-710/9, MFW82-720/9, MFW82-730/9 DVD - PhilipsPhilipsKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
: 28PW9525, 32PW9525, 36PW9525 - SchneiderSchneiderSchneider is a surname, common in Germany, it may also refer to:Companies and organizations* G. Schneider & Sohn, Bavarian brewery company* Schneider Rundfunkwerke AG, former owner of the Dual brand record players...
: Scinema 28-100T, Scinema 2810, Scinema 3000
Most widescreen sets without any PAL-plus processing will switch the display format automatically between 4:3 and 16:9, based on the signaling bits. These sets will display only the centre 432 lines of the 4:3 image, to fill all of the 16:9 frame.
Belgium
In BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, the Flemish public broadcasting service VRT
Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep
The Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie , or VRT, is a publicly-funded broadcaster of radio and television in Flanders ....
has a policy that all of its self-created TV programmes are broadcast in PALplus. For example the news is broadcast daily in PALPlus, as are almost all of the weekly scheduled shows. VRT does however always respect the original ratio of the footage. So new films and series are usually broadcast in PALplus. The commercial TV station VTM
VTM
The abbreviation VTM may refer to::* Vampire: The Masquerade, a popular role-playing game* Virginia Tech massacre* vtm, the main commercial television station in Flanders, Belgium...
also broadcasts a lot in PALplus. The VTM news for example is also broadcast in PALplus. So are the commercials. Special shows and films are always broadcast in PALplus too. VTM tends to change 4:3 footage to 16:9 too. Even the third broadcasting organisation SBS Belgium
ProSiebenSat.1 Media
ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a European media conglomerate, operating commercial television, premium pay channels, radio stations and related print businesses. It was formed on October 2, 2000 by merger of German TV broadcasters ProSieben Media AG and Sat.1 SatellitenFernsehen GmbH...
with its stations VT4
VT4
VT4 is a Flemish commercial television channel. It is part of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG.The channel began broadcasting on 1 February 1995. The channel initially had no Belgian broadcasting license and was transmitted via London . The channel now broadcasts legally from Zaventem in Belgium...
and VijfTV
VIJFtv
VIJFtv started in October 2004 as SBS Belgium's second channel and a sister channel to VT4. Although the channel's target audience are females, the first thing VIJFtv broadcast was a soccer game. By doing that the station made sure men would set their TV up to view VIJFtv.2005 was a strong year for...
broadcast in PALplus for all of their new productions and they also broadcast the news and the commercials in P+.
The Walloon public broadcasting service RTBF
RTBF
Radio Télévision Belge Francophone is the public broadcasting organization of the French Community of Belgium, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium...
broadcasts bought 16:9 programmes in PALplus, like films, but chooses to create their own programmes in 4:3. Walloon commercial TV station RTL-TVi now broadcasts almost all its shows in PALPlus and tends to convert its old shows to 16:9 too.
Germany
In GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
all public broadcasters (ARD
Das Erste
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany...
, ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
, etc) comply with this standard. However, private broadcasters (RTL
RTL Television
Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...
, Pro Sieben, etc) have shown no interest in either this standard or in the 16:9 format.
Pay-per-view channels such as those on Sky often broadcast in 16:9, but use a different standard that requires another kind of decoder.
Netherlands
In the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
the public broadcasters used PALplus until 2005 but have stopped using it because they preferred digital television (anamorphic widescreen) over PALplus. The public broadcasters and all the major commercial stations have a policy of broadcasting their own and new shows in widescreen, this isn't converted to PALplus on the analogue signal of the cable operators. As cable is the most widespread form of receiving television in the Netherlands the system isn't used anymore. Terrestrial analogue signals stopped in November 2006 in this country.
Portugal
In PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, the private broadcaster TVI began broadcasting movies in PALplus in 1994, but some years after it left the standard behind.
The public broadcaster RTP
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, S.A.,commonly known as RTP, is Portugal's public service broadcasting organization. It operates four terrestrial television channels and three national radio channels, as well as several satellite and cable offerings....
started using the format in 5/12/1997.
The system was used to broadcast selected programs (about five programs each day) and some widescreen movies on analog terrestrial broadcasts. Cable distributors occasionally strip the signal of the WSS bits, rendering the system inoperative. Also, although Digital Terrestrial Television broadcasts have started, there is no dedicated anamorphic simulcast for the digital channels. Therefore, PALPlus over terrestrial analog PAL broadcasts remained the only source of 576 lines widescreen TV in Portugal.
Since the middle of 2010 PALPlus was dropped in favor of regular 16:9 letterbox, because the system caused considerable image degradation (with an effective horizontal resolution of only about ~400px compared to 720px of a digital SDTV image) when used on digital transmissions.
Finland
In FinlandFinland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, the commercial broadcaster MTV3
MTV3
MTV3 is a Finnish commercial television station owned by Bonnier. It had the biggest audience share of all Finnish TV channels until Finnish Broadcasting Company’s YLE1 took the lead. The letters MTV stand for Mainos-TV , due to the channel getting its revenue from running commercials...
started broadcasting the youth music program Jyrki in PALplus format on 1997-08-18, but the experiment ended when the program ended some four years later. Now both MTV and the public broadcaster YLE have switched to digital TV technology.
Greece
In GreeceGreece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, there are still sporadic PALplus broadcasts, on the national television (E.R.T. - Hellenic Radio Television). Through the '90s there were few attempts from commercial broadcasters to adopt the system, but they all failed to gain popularity.
Because of the nature of ERT's broadcasting
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
equipment,
events and documentaries shot by ERT in PALPlus are still broadcast as such, as they leave control room to be distributed.
However, PALplus reaching audiences is a different story.
PALplus is not preserved when content is distributed via NOVA
NOVA Greece
NOVA Greece is a Greek digital satellite pay TV platform owned by Multichoice Hellas. It was launched in December 1999.NOVA offers Greek subscribers an array of international and domestic programmes plus the majority of popular Greek terrestrial TV channels along with a number of Greek...
, due to heavy MPEG encoding since WSS signaling
Widescreen signaling
In television technology, widescreen signaling is a digital stream embedded in the TV signal describing qualities of the broadcast, in particular the intended aspect ratio of the image...
and additional information embedded in PALplus are seriously degraded
Degradation (telecommunications)
In telecommunication, degradation, which may be categorized as either "graceful" or "catastrophic", has the following meanings:#The deterioration in quality, level, or standard of performance of a functional unit....
to the extent that renders them no longer decodable.
As some of the repeaters of ERT's channels are fed via OTE
OTE
Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. , usually known by its Greek initials OTE, is the dominant telecommunications provider in Greece. Formerly a state-owned monopoly, OTE was part-privatized in 1998 and is now listed on the Athens and New York Stock Exchanges...
(Greek public telecom provider) in uncompressed form over terrestrial links, and others are fed via NOVA
NOVA Greece
NOVA Greece is a Greek digital satellite pay TV platform owned by Multichoice Hellas. It was launched in December 1999.NOVA offers Greek subscribers an array of international and domestic programmes plus the majority of popular Greek terrestrial TV channels along with a number of Greek...
(Greece's only satellite platform) it depends on each repeater's feed source whether the content terrestrially broadcast (VHF - UHF) is PALplus or not.
Spain
In SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the Catalan public television, TV3
TV3 (Catalonia)
TV3 is the primary television channel of Catalan public broadcaster Televisió de Catalunya, a subsidiary of the CCMA. TV3 broadcasts programs only in Catalan, with an optional dual track in the original language for some foreign-language series and movies...
, trialed the PALplus format in the late 1990s, with a weekly broadcast of a film in this format. Other public regional stations (like Galicia's TVG) tested the format too, but after these trials the technology was dropped and 16:9 digital broadcasts were not introduced until 2007.
United Kingdom
In the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
broadcast selected films as PALplus during the late 1990s. Some programmes, including Fifteen to one
Fifteen to One
Fifteen to One was a popular general knowledge quiz show broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. It ran from 4 January 1988 to 19 December 2003, and had a reputation for being one of the toughest quizzes on TV. Throughout the show's run it was presented and produced by William G. Stewart...
and the omnibus edition of Brookside
Brookside
Brookside is a defunct British soap opera set in Liverpool, England. The series began on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982, and ran for 21 years until 4 November 2003...
were also broadcast this way. All of the six main broadcasters, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Five, Sky and Virgin Media, now all broadcast in anamorphic widescreen on digital.
History
In the late 1980s a new broadcasting standard was created, HD-MACHD-MAC
HD-MAC was a proposed broadcast television systems standard by the European Commission in 1986 . It was an early attempt by the EEC to provide High-definition television in Europe. It was a complex mix of analogue signal , multiplexed with digital sound...
, that was HDTV
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
and 16:9 capable (up to 2048×1152 picture resolution), twice the number of available lines in PAL. As a transitional standard, D2-MAC was established. Like HD-MAC, it is 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
ready, but with the same number of lines that PAL uses. When D2-MAC failed due to being an incompatible system with existing sets, the PALplus norm was introduced as an attempt to create a compatible widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
EDTV
EdTV
EDtv is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Ron Howard. An adaptation of the Quebec film Louis 19, le roi des ondes , it stars Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Ellen DeGeneres, Martin Landau, Rob Reiner, Sally Kirkland, Elizabeth Hurley, Clint Howard, and Dennis Hopper.The...
transmission format.
Initially, PALplus was the name of a strategy group founded in 1989 in order to develop an enhanced system for terrestrial transmission compatible with standard-PAL. In the beginning, the group consisted of the public broadcasting corporations of Germany (ARD and ZDF), Austria(ORF), Switzerland (SRG) and the United Kingdom (BBC and UKIB, United Kingdom Independent Broadcasters) together with the consumer electronics manufacturers Grundig, Nokia, Philips and Thomson. Sony as well as the Spanish and Portuguese broadcasters joined the group later on.
At the 1993 International Consumer Electronics Exhibition in Berlin, the first experimental PALplus broadcasts began. At the same year, the European Union approved a plan to support the production and broadcast of 16:9 programs.
In 1994 broadcasts began adopting the format and Nokia launched the first PALplus TV set in Germany.
In 1995 one of the four big Korean electronics manufacturers, Samsung, joined the PALplus consortium.
On January 1996, the PALplus board published the specifications of the standard in order to support the further dissemination of this standard for wide-screen transmissions. After German broadcasters started to broadcast some of their programmes in PAL+, the PALplus board ended its work at the end of that same year.
At the beginning of 1998, PALplus programmes were broadcast on a regular basis in nine European countries, which made PALplus the mostly used standard for 16:9 transmissions in Europe.
Criticism
The decoding of a 16:9 picture in PALplus is very costly and requires the use of the two fields of the full picture. Because of this, only expensive TVs such as 100 Hz TV sets can decode the 16:9 mode of PALplus.For all this, the takeup of PALplus has been marginal, and the future of this standard does not look very bright, since broadcasters are switching to digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
broadcasting (DVB).
See also
- HDTVHigh-definition televisionHigh-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
- DVB
- PALPALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
- Broadcast television systemBroadcast television systemBroadcast television systems are encoding or formatting standards for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. There are three main analog television systems in current use around the world: NTSC, PAL, and SECAM...
- Widescreen television
- Widescreen signalingWidescreen signalingIn television technology, widescreen signaling is a digital stream embedded in the TV signal describing qualities of the broadcast, in particular the intended aspect ratio of the image...
External links
- All You Ever Wanted to Know About PALplus but were Afraid to Ask
- TV Express (in Spanish)
- PALPlus overview
- Vom Kupferstich zu PALplus (German)
- PALPlus
- Fernsehen mit Format - 4:3 contra 16:9 (German)
- PALPlus test cards
- SCADplus: 16:9 Action plan for the television in the 16:9 screen format - European Union