Widescreen production at 360 Mbits

The Independent Television (ITV) Association defined and undertook the construction of a mobile widescreen production unit on behalf of the United Kingdom's principal commercial television network. The aim of the unit was to give the ITV companies the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the techniques required to produce enhanced quality widescreen programmes. Some other broadcasters or facility companies were either in the process of constructing or had completed mobile widescreen production facilities, based on a variety of technologies and standards. These included an enhanced resolution clean PAL system and digital components with luminance sampled at 13.5 MHz. The decision was taken to construct a component production facility using equipment that internally sampled the luminance signal at 18 MHz. Such a system would deliver the highest possible quality 625 line picture for widescreen production. However, the final decision could not be taken without exploratory discussions with several equipment manufacturers. The author outlines the principal advantages of a component standard based on 18 MHz sampling, as these were deemed strong enough to merit the construction of a higher cost experimental facility.