PALplus - History

History

In the late 1980s a new broadcasting standard was created, HD-MAC, that was HDTV and 16:9 capable (up to 2048×1152 picture resolution), twice the number of available lines in PAL. As a transitional standard, D2-MAC was established. Like HD-MAC, it is 16:9 ready, but with the same number of lines that PAL uses. When D2-MAC failed due to being an incompatible system with existing sets, the PALplus norm was introduced as an attempt to create a compatible widescreen EDTV transmission format.

Initially, PALplus was the name of a strategy group founded in 1989 in order to develop an enhanced system for terrestrial transmission compatible with standard-PAL. In the beginning, the group consisted of the public broadcasting corporations of Germany (ARD and ZDF), Austria (ORF), Switzerland (SRG) and the United Kingdom (BBC and UKIB, United Kingdom Independent Broadcasters) together with the consumer electronics manufacturers Grundig, Nokia, Philips and Thomson. Sony as well as the Spanish and Portuguese broadcasters joined the group later on.

At the 1993 International Consumer Electronics Exhibition in Berlin, the first experimental PALplus broadcasts began. At the same year, the European Union approved a plan to support the production and broadcast of 16:9 programs.

In 1994 broadcasts began adopting the format and Nokia launched the first PALplus TV set in Germany.

In 1995 one of the four big Korean electronics manufacturers, Samsung, joined the PALplus consortium.

On January 1996, the PALplus board published the specifications of the standard in order to support the further dissemination of this standard for wide-screen transmissions. After German broadcasters started to broadcast some of their programmes in PAL+, the PALplus board ended its work at the end of that same year.

At the beginning of 1998, PALplus programmes were broadcast on a regular basis in nine European countries, which made PALplus the mostly used standard for 16:9 transmissions in Europe.