PALplus

PAL plus was compatible to PAL broadcast standard for analog color television. New features are

• The transmitter-side suppression of color artifacts,
• Ghosting suppression (optional)
• A 16:9 mode, which contains more information than a standard 16:9 movie, which will be broadcast in PAL format ( with black bars top and bottom ), and
• Smaller auxiliary signals, such as instructions for the receiver, whether the broadcast in 16:9 - or 4:3 is present (Wide Screen Signalling - WSS) and
• Whether the material is interlaced ( " Camera Mode " ) or progressive ( "Film mode" ) was recorded or sampled.

Loses the method, how ever the analogue broadcasting of television signals, since about 2006, more and more importance.

16:9 mode

In 16:9 mode the image for image information, the 576 lines are used, which increases the sharpness in the vertical direction. The video bandwidth, ie, the image sharpness in the horizontal direction but does not change for historical reasons: it remains at 5 MHz, which corresponds to about 560 pixels. Would namely, the bandwidth of the image signal is increased, this would mean that the picture and sound mutually disturbed, ie the audio signal would be visible as a stripe pattern and sharp edges as audible rattle.

Improving the representation boils down to two effects:

• The lines are written, till there are 576 lines written on 9/16 instead of 12/16 of the image height in 16:9 mode, as with an anamorphic DVD. This reduces banding and artifacts.
• The vertical resolution for nearly horizontal structures is increased by 33%. The vertical color resolution, which is significantly lower than for PAL in NTSC, and the horizontal resolution that is already in the normal PAL frame worse than the vertical resolution is not improved.

On the transmitter side, the 16:9 image is scaled down from 576 to 432 lines, so that it can be displayed without distortion from a 4:3 TV with conventional PAL decoder. From the increased image sharpness type of TV has nothing. The remaining lines in the top and bottom of the image are maintained at black level. This is the U color subcarrier - this is the color difference signal for blue in the YUV color model - these lines to converted to a differential analog signal record by which the restoration of the full 576 lines for the luminance component is possible. The color information for the image lines is not transmitted. This manifests itself in ordinary PAL receivers in the typical weak dark blue, and sometimes pale yellow streaks in the black top and bottom areas. The blue color subcarrier U was therefore chosen because the human eye is least sensitive to blue and thus minimize image artifacts on conventional 4:3 receiver. The color information for these additionally inserted 144 image lines is not transmitted but derived from the adjacent rows in the receiver by interpolation.

For the correct representation of a PAL plus image either a PAL plus TV or a normal 16:9 TV with an upstream external PALplus decoder is necessary.

Dissemination

Some of the public service broadcaster used the standard common in Germany; However, the free -to-air commercial broadcaster they largely ignored. The pay-TV broadcaster Premiere beaming his analogue program often made in PAL plus. Due to the declining importance of the analogue television reception in Germany and the leaked EU funding but even the public broadcaster to create any new PAL plus -capable equipment more and replace them in the event of a defect by cheaper, not PAL plus -enabled devices.

The public television in Austria, ORF, 16:9 material used in two national television programs for several years in analog PAL plus. After the allocation to the broadcasting stations was converted to digital, you send only in PAL.

In Switzerland, the German -language television SF mid-May 2005, set the broadcast of PAL plus transmissions.

In Belgium, the Flemish public broadcaster VRT has a policy by which a large part of his self - produced programs must be submitted in PAL plus. For example, the daily messages are sent in PAL plus, as are most of the weekly shows. More recent movies are broadcast in PAL plus. The commercial TV station VTM also sends in PAL plus, although not as often as VRT. Also in this channel the messages are sent in PAL plus, as special shows and movies. In Wallonia, the public broadcaster RTBF sends purchased 16:9 PAL plus programs in, for example, Films, but he prefers to produce its own broadcasts in 4:3 format. Wallonia commercial television station RTL TVI sends rare in PAL plus and remains in the older 4:3 format.

In the Netherlands, in the PAL plus transmissions are rare. Most shipments are in plain, old 4:3 format, but sometimes special shows and series are also sent in PAL plus. 16:9 broadcasts that were purchased from other stations, rarely converted by 4:3, but sent in their original aspect ratio in PAL plus.

In Portugal, the private channel TVI beamed from 1994 temporarily movies in PAL plus from. Today, only the public broadcaster RTP ​​sends selected programs in this standard.

History

End of the 1980s was in competition with the Japanese MUSE standard ( 1125 lines ) propagates a European high-definition television standard, HD - MAC with 1250 lines (see HDTV), ie twice the number of lines of PAL, and an aspect ratio of 16:9. As an interim solution D2 - MAC was introduced, compatible with HD-MAC, although as 16:9, but only with PAL number of lines. The permanent introduction of this analog TV standards (with digital surround sound ), however, failed in the market because parallel in the USA, the digital HD 1080i60 format has been developed with MPEG -2 compression. Its successor PAL plus could not assert itself decisively.

Criticism

The decoding of the 16:9 mode requires the caching of the complete image. At times, the planned introduction that was consuming. Therefore, only a few high-priced TV supported this mode. PAL plus televisions that were advertised as such, were only briefly to find on the market. Today, (partial ) PAL plus ability hidden behind features like "Auto 16:9 - / 4:3 switching".