Test card

A test card, also known as a test pattern in North America, is a television test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active, but no program is being broadcast.

Related Topics:
North America - Television

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The test card usually has a set of line-up patterns, enabling televisions to be adjusted to show the picture correctly. (Compare with SMPTE color bars). They would also typically be broadcast to a background of specially composed music (to avoid having to pay licensing fees for existing compositions), a tone, or the relayed broadcasting of a radio station also owned by the same broadcaster. There is now a cult following for test-card music.

Related Topics:
SMPTE color bars - Radio station - Test-card music

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The most famous British test card is Test Card F which incorporates a colour photograph, used on the BBC and ITV from the beginning of colour broadcasts in the late 1960s. It was later updated as Test Card J, and for widescreen broadcasts as Test Card W. This test card has often been spoofed by comedians.

Related Topics:
British - Test Card F - BBC - ITV - 1960s - Test Card J - Widescreen - Test Card W - Comedian

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Formerly a common sight, test cards are now only rarely seen. Several things have led to the demise of the test card:

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• Modern microcontroller-controlled televisions rarely, if ever, need adjustment, so test cards are much less important than previously.
• In developed countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom, the financial imperatives of commercial television broadcasting mean that air-time is now typically filled with programs and commercials (such as infomercials) 24 hours a day, and non-commercial broadcasters have to match this.
• In North America, most test cards such as the famous Indian Head test card of the 1950s and 1960s have long been relegated to history. The SMPTE color bars occasionally turn up, but with most North American broadcasters now following a 24-hour schedule, this too has become a rare sight. The switch from analog to digital broadcasting is expected to render this last test pattern obsolete.
• When there are in fact no standard programs being broadcast on the channels that do not have 24-hour programming, other, more informative features such as educational shows, i.e. the BBC Learning Zone, and teletext-type programmes such as CLOSE, ITV Nightscreen and 4-Tel On View are often broadcast, the latter type acting as the better test-card substitute as they just roll continuously.
• Australian national broadcaster SBS airs a weather map in place of a test card with music from albums sold by SBS and a ticker at the bottom of the screen during the early hours of the morning.
• Australian community broadcaster Channel 31 in Melbourne air Fishcam, a videocamera aimed at a fish tank.

On television networks and stations in most of the Third World countries, test cards are still seen because most television networks and stations in those countries do not have 24-hour programming.

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Test card: See also ►