BBC2 Goes Colour 25th Anniversary David Attenborough, Wimbledon '67 Final, Apollo 10 1993

David Attenborough Controller of BBC2 was determined to be Europe’s first colour TV channel starting with the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships in July 1967.

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Colour Cameras
It was a great success, and history was made although the availability of colour cameras limited the BBC starting with only four production cameras. Later in 1967, Marconi delivered 17 cameras to provide BBC2 with a full colour service. Given most homes had black & white receivers, a new transmission system was required to broadcast in both black & white as well as colour.

Video Tape Machines
Prior to the start of Wimbledon in 1967, the BBC received 12 high band colour Ampex video machines. The first week of the Lawn Tennis Championships was unofficially transmitted in colour and the BBC used this as a test period for colour and postproduction editing. Apparently 12 modifications were made to the video machines with 10 adopted by the manufacturer. Some related to allow tapes to be edited, (physically cut and spliced!)

Technological Advancements
Unlike BBC1 and ITV, BBC2 was broadcast on 625 lines only, so was unavailable to viewers using 405-line sets. This created a market for dual standard receivers which could switch between the two systems. Set manufacturers ramped up production of 625 sets in anticipation of a large market demand for the new BBC2, but the market did not materialise.

Early technical problems, included being unable to transmit USA recorded video tapes due to a lack of system conversion from the NTSC 525-line system, were not resolved until 1971 by a committee headed by James Redmond.

Phase Alternating Line (PAL) system
On 1 July 1967, during the Wimbledon Championships, BBC2 became the first channel in Europe to begin regular broadcasts in colour using the Phase Alternating Line (PAL) system, which was based on the work of the German television engineer Walter Bruch. A thirteen-part series Civilisation (1969) was created as a celebration of two millennia of western art and culture to showpiece the new colour technology.

Transmitters
BBC1 and ITV later joined BBC2 on 625-line Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band, but continued to simulcast on 405-line Very High Frequency (VHF) until 1985. BBC1 and ITV simultaneously introduced colour on UHF on 15 November 1969, although both had broadcast some programmes in colour "unofficially" since September 1969.

In 1979, BBC2 adopted the first computer-generated channel identification (ident) in Britain, with its use of the double striped, orange '2' logo. The ident, created in house by BBC engineers, lasted until March 1986 and heralded the start of computer-generated logos.

Digital
As the switch to digital-only terrestrial transmission progressed, BBC Two was (in each region in turn) the first analogue TV channel to be replaced with the BBC multiplex, at first four, then two weeks ahead of the other four UK channels. This was required for those relay transmitters that had no current Freeview service giving viewers time to purchase the equipment, unless they had already selected a satellite or cable service. The last region for BBC Two to end on analogue terrestrial television was Northern Ireland on 10 October 2012.

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Technical
Source media: Super VHS Tape
Video format: PAL 4:3
Audio: Mono (sorry, should have uploaded the digital version!)
Location: London
First Transmitted: 1993

#colourtv #davidattenborough #ntsc. #prototype