Who invented PAL?

[dtuomi]

Originally Posted by Duke Nukem

The beeb made experimental transmissions with colour on 405 lines in the 50's and a number of such receivers still exist. A lesson learned from the US was that expensive receivers would significantly hamper take up by the public, not helped by the fact that in comparison to the US the UK worker had much less in the way of disposable income. So, at that point in time investing in all the colour equipment in the studios could not be justified.

By the time colour was becoming feasible, the rest of Europe were also looking at introducing colour and the more resiliant PAL was a natural choice. No tint controls needed :-) though having said that the one and only colour TV in my collection - a supposedly posh Dynatron (essentially a Pye in a posh cabinet) has a tint control!

TTFN,
Jon

Apparently as late as the early to mid-60's the ITV people were still advocating NTSC on the 405 line service because it would be cheapest to implement.

There was a Parliamentary committee that met during that time period to choose the color standard, and the BBC wanted PAL.

At any rate I am speculating about why they used the audio offset that they did. The BBC did so much experimentation with different color encoding schemes and transmission standards that there must be a reason for it that only appears arbitrary in hindsight.

David