I got curious and looked up UK television history on
wikipedia.org.
After the original 405-line system in 1936, the UK got a
new UHF 625-line system in 1964. This would have been totally
immune to the trans-Atlantic interference I was talking about.
It also had FM sound making it state-of-the-art so you could
hear the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and many others
better.:-)
I was kind of surprised to read that color transmissions
didn't start on that system until BBC2 began them in 1967. I
read specifically that they wanted to iron out some of the
technical weaknesses discovered in the American NTSC system
which was the first color TV system in wide use anywhere.
Sometimes, being first isn't the best. Once you get a system out
there in public use, you're stuck with it. In both PAL and NTSC,
the new color transmissions had to be compatible with existing
black-and-white sets so they didn't turn in to paper weights
over night.
The UK got stereo sound about the same time we did and both
systems had ways of inserting low-speed digital information in
to un-seen parts of the picture. In America, we used that mostly
for closed-captions for the deaf and for tweaks to the NTSC
color adjustments to try and try and try to make it more
correct.
The UK and other European television systems developed
tele text systems for putting TV guides and other interesting
features in to the signal.
I think everybody pretty well wrung every last bit of
use one could get out of those systems which served us very well
until now.
Martin
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