Philips PM5544
Encyclopedia
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
PM5544 is a television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
pattern generator
Video signal generator
A video signal generator is a type of signal generator which outputs predetermined video and/or television oscillation waveforms, and other signals used in the synchronization of television devices and to stimulate faults in, or aid in parametric measurements of, television and video systems. There...
, most commonly used to provide a television station with a complex test card
Test card
A test card, also known as a test pattern in North America and Australia, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast...
commonly referred to as a Philips Pattern or PTV Circle. The content and layout of the pattern was designed in the Philips TV laboratory in Copenhagen by chief engineer Erik Helmer Nielsen in 1968. The equipment, PM5544, which generates the pattern, was then made by his assistant engineer Finn Hendil in 1968-69. Since the introduction of the PM5544 in the early 1970s, the Philips Pattern has become one of the most commonly used test cards, with only the SMPTE bars
SMPTE color bars
The SMPTE color bars are a type of television test pattern, and is most commonly used in countries where the NTSC video standard is dominant, such as those in North America. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers refers to this test pattern as Engineering Guideline EG 1-1990...
and the 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...
Test Card F
Test Card F
Test Card F is a test card that was created by the BBC and used on television in the United Kingdom and in countries elsewhere in the world for more than four decades...
coming close to its usage.
The Philips Pattern was later incorporated into other test pattern generators from Philips themselves, as well as test pattern generators from various other manufacturers.
The BBC occasionally uses a modified version, Test Card G, which it first used in 1971, although it is only used rarely as compared to its contemporary Test Card F and the latter's successor Test Card J
Test Card J
Test Card J is a test card, an image used to determine the quality of a broadcast television picture. It is an updated version of Test Card F, which was created by BBC engineer George Hersee, and is used to test analogue television signals...
. Many broadcasters using a 625 line PAL
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...
system use some form of the Philips Pattern.
Since the Philips Pattern is geared towards the PAL
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...
colour coding system, this test pattern is uncommon among NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
broadcasters, though some, such as CBFT
CBFT
CBFT is the flagship station of Télévision de Radio-Canada, the French language television network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Its studios and master control are located at Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal....
and CBMT
CBMT
CBMT-DT is the CBC's television station in Montreal, Quebec. Programming on CBMT is seen on a network of more than 50 rebroadcasters throughout Quebec and in three communities in northern Manitoba: Brochet, Poplar River, and Shamattawa.-History:...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, WBOY-TV
WBOY-TV
WBOY-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for North-Central West Virginia that is licensed to Clarksburg. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 12 from a transmitter east of downtown and U.S. 50. Owned by West Virginia Media Holdings, the station has studios on West...
and WNYW
WNYW
WNYW, virtual channel 5 , is the flagship television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in New York City. The station's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building and its studio facilities are located in the Yorkville section of Manhattan...
in the USA, DZBB-TV
DZBB-TV
DZBB-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of Philippine television network GMA Network, Inc. Its studios are located at the GMA Network Center, at the corner of Timog Avenue and Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Quezon City...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Myawaddy TV
Myawaddy TV
Myawaddy is a Myanmar military-owned television network based in Yangon, Myanmar. It was launched on the 27 March 1995, in commemoration of the Burmese Armed Forces Day. Its programming is also broadcast over the AsiaSat 2 satellite. The average duration of broadcast is approximately eight hours...
in Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
have used a 525 line version of it in the past . The Japanese
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
national broadcaster NHK
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
also did use a 525-line version of the said test card, albeit with slight technical differences in specifications as compared to those used by the American and Canadian broadcasters.
The Philips Pattern was also in widespread use in Australia for many years, most notably with the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
and SBS
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
. Some commercial stations also used it.
Some television stations have also been seen to have used slightly modified versions of the Philips Pattern, most notably the inclusion of a digital clock and/or date, as well as the station ID, in it. This practice is common in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and in some parts of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
A 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....
capable Philips Pattern generator, PM5644, was introduced by Philips in the 1990s. The widescreen version of the test card retains the signals present in the original, and features additional signals to test further aspects of signal and picture quality, as well as overscan
Overscan
Overscan is extra image area around the four edges of a video image that may not be seen reliably by the viewer. It exists because television sets in the 1930s through 1970s were highly variable in how the video image was framed within the cathode ray tube .-Origins of overscan:Early televisions...
markings. As with its predecessor, the widescreen Philips Pattern was adopted by various other manufacturers of test pattern generators.
Because of the number of manufacturers and generators made over the years to produce the Philips Pattern, various configurations and modifications exist. While the basic specifications normally remain consistent, there are often small variations to the Philips Pattern depending on the generator used to produce it, as well as how the broadcaster has chosen to configure it.