12 Facts About Philips PM5544

Philips PM5544 is a television pattern generator, most commonly used to provide a television station with a complex test card commonly referred to as a Philips Pattern or PTV Circle pattern.

Since the widespread introduction of the PM5544 from the early-1970s, the Philips Pattern has become one of the most commonly used test cards, with only the SMPTE and EBU colour bars as well as the BBC's Test Card F coming close to its usage.

Philips PM5544 pattern was later incorporated into other test pattern generators from Philips itself, as well as test pattern generators from various other manufacturers.

Rather than previous test card approaches that worked by a camera or monoscope filming a printed card, the Philips PM5544 generates the test patterns fully using electronic circuits, with separate paths for Y, R-Y and B-Y colour components, allowing engineers to reliably test and adjust transmitters and receivers for signal disturbances and colour separation, for instance for PAL broadcasts.

Philips PM5544 pattern is geared towards the PAL colour-coding system, but SECAM versions exist .

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In Zimbabwe, the Philips PM5544 was used by Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation from the start of its regular colour broadcasts in the early-1980s, replacing the Indian-head test pattern.

In Greenland, the Philips PM5544 are used by its public broadcaster Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa since its launch of television services in 1982.

Philips PM5544 was used by Raidio Teilifis Eireann in the Republic of Ireland from the start of its regular colour broadcasts in 1972.

In Spain, the Philips PM5544 was introduced by the various autonomous and private channels in the early-1980s notably by TV3, El 33, Telemadrid, Antena 3, EITB and Canal+ Spain, as well as on point-to-point terrestrial and satellite links operated by Retevision and Telefonica Sistemas de Satelites.

Use of the Philips PM5544 continued for some time afterwards in some of its constituent successor countries.

Use of the Philips PM5544 was in its test card broadcasts to February 17th, 2001 between 12:00 AM and 06:00 AM, and 2 times a year during the prevention of broadcast transmitters to 2013.

Philips PM5544 was used in Hungary, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.