The BBC Test Card: Britain's First Meme? (DIRECTOR'S CUT)
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- NOTE: This is a re-edited re-uploaded version of my original video. Due to a copyright claim it had to be trimmed and I fixed a couple of other things too. For more on the content match and subsequent claim see my follow up video here: • Personal Computing: Fi...
In this documentary we discuss the influence of the Big British Test Card, it's status as a meme and it's trans-media influence way beyond it's official retirement.
CZcams & Other Media Credits
(In Order of Appearance)
Frank Sidebottom's Proper Telly Show Testcard Part 1 of 8
by Frank19562010
mindfulof.tech...
Carole Hersee Biography - The BBC Test Card Girl
by Prentis Hancock
mindfulof.tech...
Test Card F
by doubledeckers
mindfulof.tech...
The BBC Test Card Witch
by the Scarfolk Blog
mindfulof.tech...
POTTERS WHEEL BBC Interlude Film 1950-60s
by bbctim123
mindfulof.tech...
32 inch crt TV on 230v makes arcs
by high1voltage1rules
mindfulof.tech...
VINTAGE 1956 ANIMATED TV REPAIR COMMERCIAL
by TV TOY MEMORIES
mindfulof.tech...
How to Calibrate Your TV
by RTings.com
mindfulof.tech...
Test Card F
by Vintage Electronics Blog & Forum
mindfulof.tech...
The Test Card Gallery
by MHP
mindfulof.tech...
Music Credits
(In Order of Appearance)
From the CZcams Audio Library
Aaron Kenny - English Country Garden
rolju - Bit Symphony
John Deley and the 41 Players - Ersatz Bossa
Godmode - Whole Tone Limbo
Godmode - Broken Drum Machine
Dyalla - Patience
From tandess.com
[B'nemo,春日イオ] - ゆとりアドベンチャー
Special Thanks to
Mrs. Mindful
Like & subscribe, please like & subscribe.
#bbc #meme #retro
it sucks that this doesn't have more views. this is really well made and is pretty funny
Thank you so much! It is my favourite video I have produced so far and I really enjoyed making it, glad you enjoyed watching it too :)
how does this dude have only 78 subscribers... this editing is really awesome.
You earned my sub.
as noted by other commenters, testcard W (widescreen) has still been broadcast after its "official" decommissioning, albeit on very rare occasions.
i remember being up very early in the morning sometime in 2016-2018, when suddenly that good old sine wave audio burst out of the tv, far louder than the average noise of the audio preceding it. i wasn't paying attention to the tv at the time, but vaguely recall it was in a promo for some show before the card started. when i looked up, testcard w sat on screen accompanied by a ticking noise that sounded as if it had been recorded from an absolutely gigantic analogue clock. it continued on for about a minute, and then switched back to another promo- i think it was even partway through.
the thing that confused me the most about the whole ordeal was the time when it happened. i dont have the clip to hand, but i'm pretty sure it was something silly like 2:53am, which seems to me a very un-BBC time to broadcast such a thing. i assume it was some kind of procedure that they go through to just make sure all the broadcasts are synchronised or something, but i hadn't seen it happen before then and i haven't seen it since, and around that time i was often awake well into the early hours of the morning. perhaps it wasn't supposed to be aired at all. i have a feeling it was on bbc 2, if anyone's curious.
haha, i just stumbled across a video titled "BBC1 - Annual Rebroadcast Test - TCW - July 2001" where i'd commented about this, and someone said it's still used most mornings on BBC 2 before the start of the first programme of the day. the "clock" noise i remembered was woodblocks, and the purpose was as an audio sync! i had completely forgotten about this interaction, but safe to say they do still use the card (:
Had to log in properly to comment because a video this well made deserves it. I have to admit I was not expecting production values this high from such a tiny channel but this was great. Also, I love how something as simple and functional as a TV test card can become something so much more to people, like a piece of strange art haha.
I haven't been active on here for ages but I too had to log in to say thank you for your kind words!
I hope they'll show it again on their 100th anniversary
We have a playlist for when the BBC Testcard is showing up especially abruptly on a BBC Parliament show
Although the test card was "officially" retired in 2013 like you said, it was seen on BBC 2 in the mornings from 2016 to some point in 2019, and allegedly as late as 2021 on BBC 2 Wales. It's something I'd love to see myself on TV one day, I was born in 2003 so I wouldn't have noticed it as a kid and now I'm an adult, its sadly become unbelievably rare to find. This is a very well made video and it was really interesting to watch.
Thanks Luke! I really enjoyed making it, super happy people are liking it :)
Luckily BBC hd aired a collection of almost all test cards after it shutdown and BBC two hd was getting ready to start airing at 6 am
The BBC also used a modified version of the Philips PM5544 test card, more familiar to overseas viewers, which they named Test Card G. Which was usually used as either an alternative to Test Card F due to maintenance, or by regional transmitters as an, 'opt out', when programmes were shown, (usually during the day), in other parts of the country.
One other integral part of the test card was, of course, the music that went along with it. Which consisted of a variety of genres from classical to Jazz, Funk and R&B. All from various library music producers. The styles and fashions of which changed over the years from the 60's, right through to 2012, when the remaining bastion of, 'downtime music', namely, 'pages from Ceefax', was finally switched off due to the advent of digital television.
Great infodump! Thank you :)
Not an earlier sketch, but remember one from spitting image from early 90s which I’d like to see again. It had the puppet of the girl telling the clown off for by saying that she’d been waiting over 20 years for him to draw his cross then the clown starts picking his nose. Anyone seen it?
This sounds great, would love to see it too.
I couldn't find the sketch but I did find a blog from someone very displeased with misrepresentations of the clown in test card replicas (no, really): timworthington.blogspot.com/2017/06/stop-getting-clown-wrong.html
They state it was "in 1989" when Spitting Image replicated the card (incorrectly) so can narrow it down to series 6 or 7.
Let us know if you find it :)
The testcard was actually available on the BBC red button via a "secret" way to get in (Basicaly you press the green your yellow button, tune out then back in and press green or yellow idk which one) and you will be in the engineers thing which lets you do stuff I'm too worried to get in big trouble because it says stuff like broadcast on or off and on it you could view the bbcs last ever existing testcard which is different to the one in the video which the BBC found about and removed the testcard option idk why.
Brought here when searching for test card music. Very well made video.
I love how the 404 page on the BBC's various websites are of the clown toy, in front of FIRE.
No, it's just the Clangers now
5:30 exactly a disaster
The testcard never bothered me in the least as a young kid, then I remember Russell Harty in late 1982 having some kind of weird testcard special with Jack Douglas in it. Can't remember exactly what happened, but it creeped the living crap out of me and I haven't been the same since. Kind of reminds me not getting a hangover for the first 3 years of drinking, then getting a beast of a hangover after drinking Canadian Club whiskey for the first time...
Haha, I wonder if anyone knows what show that was? Be interested to see some clips.
I never understood why the BBC used a still photo in the circle as a kid. I understood what the test card was for (well sort of) but why couldn’t they show some kind of video in the circle instead of Carol and the demonic looking doll thing?
I also couldn’t understand why the BBC didn’t relay Radio 1 or World
Service for sound instead of that awful music.
I always thought it would’ve been good to have videos of train drivers eye views of various lines. It would’ve been something more interesting to watch. They could have still had the rest of the test card but just with a moving image in the circle maybe?
It is possible that in the early days whatever was being used to generate this signal would not have been able to support more than a single static image. They certainly could have achieved this in later years but by then probably had equipment and processes that relied on the image being largely unchanged from it's original format.
By the way if you love first person train journeys I would recommend googling "Densha de Go!" sounds like it might be right up your street :)
@@mindfuloftech Hi. Yes in the early days video in the circle probably wasn’t possible. Shame tho.
Anyway I will Google that address thank you as that is right up my street so to speak. Thanks for that.
Take care and stay safe.
Because the test card was designed to be just that rather than entertainment. A moving image as you suggest, would not be of much use to an engineer and the central picture was chosen specifically to contain flesh tone. The nought and crosses were for dynamic convergence checks and the X marked the centre of the picture; all useful stuff for an engineer. Moving images were shown in the form of what were called Trade Test Colour Films which were broadcast in the early days of colour. Not much use from an engineering point of view which is the main reason they were removed from trade tests in 1973. As for the music, well, radio 1 would really have been awful (since you refer to awful music) but the real reason was the agreement the BBC had with the MU and PPL.
@@paulsawtell3991 Fair enough. Thanks for the explanation.
Appreciated. That finally answers that.
Fun fact: that "demonic looking doll thing" is a clown toy named Bubbles, and it was made from a kit that the girl (Carol) had at the time.
It's used when BBC shutsdown channels
Carol was left handed and so to discourage lefthandedness the image was famously reversed.
Amazing, I had no idea about this. How sinister! Hahahapun.
Ngl really good video
Glad you think so!
The clown always scared me as a kid
You could probably tell he was a minion of Old Chattox...
Lex is verry scread
Brilliant. well made.
Thank you so much :)
what do the letters LS & RS (not r's and l's)
Left speaker and Right speaker respectively.
@@notjebbutstillakerbal is not speakers
What a pity test patterns have gone the way of the Dodo. 😟
what do the letters Ls, Rs, C and LFE mean in the test card?
ls means left speaker, and rs means right speaker. that’s all i know however
@@turbomario c and lfe?
@@FrozenBok i don’t know what those two mean, you might want to google search
@@turbomario key word?
left, right, centre, low frequency effects, left surround, right surround
hope this helps :)