Talk:SMPTE color bars

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When was introduced the SMPTE color-bar test pattern?

1990. It says so right at the start of the article.  Denelson83  19:43, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• Well, the article says the color bars started in the 1980's. But, I had never seen a TV station sign-off with color bars where I lived, but this happens on occassion from some Indianapolis TV stations in the overnight hours for no reason.

Why are the color bars apparently so restrictively licensed? Even if I made a piece of art using it, released under GNU licensing, it'd be illegal from what I can tell. Thats messed up. Bars of color on a site that uses the word free alot, near-totally unusable. Where is this world going to? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.81.58.56 (talk • contribs) 15:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• Where did you get that idea? While the SMPTE document itself is copyrighted (you can buy it from the SMPTE website), and SMPTE might impose restrictions on the use of their name; I'm not aware of any patents one must license--from SMPTE or anyone else--to implement SMPTE bars. Certainly, color bars are not copyrightable subject matter (as the colors used are determined entirely by technical considerations, and are not the expression of an author, they fall under the scenes a faire exception to copyright law). I work in the video industry, and I've never heard of any restrictive licensinc on SMPTE colorbars. And my employer produces several products which generate them. --EngineerScotty 03:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Other color bars 2 Why the focus on NTSC? 3 Color Bars in Culture 4 The 1000MHz Sound clip

[edit] Other color bars

While the SMPTE bars are interesting and useful; especially in NTSC land; there are other color bars signals that are useful:

• Plain old 100% and 75% bars
• The newer colorbar standard from SMPTE (can't remember the number) intended for high definition television systems

Perhaps the article should be renamed color bars, and its scope expanded. Thoughts? --EngineerScotty 03:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why the focus on NTSC?

These bars are widely used, not just for NTSC signals. On shoots, whether PAL or Digital (SD or HD), they are used to calibrate the monitors. I would suggest removing the references to NTSC in the article, which suggest that these bars are somehow specific to NTSC while they are not. Reading the article, I had the impression these bars would not be useful for PAL, which is obviously wrong.

Were they originally designed with NTSC in mind? If so, a mention of that fact near the end of the article would be enough.

I will come back later to see if someone has commented on this. If not, I will try to edit the article by removing the NTSC references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Milivoj (talk • contribs) 15:36, 25 March 2006

This is about SMPTE color bars, which includes tests that are NTSC-specific. The NTSC references should remain in this article.  Denelson83  22:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Color Bars in Culture

Elliott Smith wrote a song titled "Color Bars". There is no indication that there is a connection between the song and SMPTE color bars —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.230.161.1 (talk • contribs) 04:59, 7 June 2006

[edit] The 1000MHz Sound clip

The sound clip's format should be changed into a more user feiendly version like mp3 or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.149.149.200 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 18 November 2006

1000 MHz is way too high a frequency for people to hear. I think you mean 1 kHz. --  Denelson83  23:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The sound clips on Wikipedia are in Ogg Vorbis format. This is an open source format similar to MP3. To play an Ogg Vorbis file, a suitable media player will be needed, see [1]. Winamp is the best known freeware player for.ogg files. --Ianmacm 11:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

That 1000MHz sound is also used to "bleep" offensive stuff, right? Curvebill 23:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

1000 Hz. --  Denelson83  05:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)