Vintage TV Test Patterns
Jan Willem Kooijmans
↳ AI enthusiast - no-nonsense designer - creative coach: I inspire, motivate and support special people in the fields of design, AI, marketing and communication.
You may not believe it, but there was a time when the television did not broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round. Late at night the TV stations stopped broadcasting and usually a test card was displayed until the next morning the programming were resumed.
Used since the earliest TV broadcasts, test cards were originally physical cards at which a television camera was pointed, and such cards are still often used for calibration, alignment, and matching of cameras and camcorders.
Here are some vintage test patterns to bring back some sweet memories (From Wikimedia Commons and Present & Correct).
As you might expect, the BBC test card with the girl and clown has both a backstory and a cult following.
One of the most-used test images was RCA’s “Indian-head” test pattern:
For more nostalgia, you can watch here vintage test patterns from all around the world (half an hour)
CEO Pixel Universe / Cinematographer / Photographer / Deejay
4yNostalgie! 😀
Support Engineer CARM Front Office at ASML
4yHad a lot of fun with an .exe to show such test pattern on a PC monitor. In our IT project during military service in Utrecht, the PL walked into the room, saw the screen and being seriously impressed, said "Hey, you guys managed to get the line to The Hague up and running, that's great!" . Little did she know that a (slow) data line (especially in those days, this was around 1992) is something totally different from running a TV signal over coax ... :-D