PALplus
In the United Kingdom, Channel 4 broadcast selected films as PALplus during the late 1990s. Five out of the six main broadcasters, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five and Sky, now all broadcast in anamorphic widescreen on digital. The sixth, VMTV, will start 16:9 broadcasts in January 2008.
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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, the PALplus norm was created as another compromise, and failed as well.
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Criticism
The decoding of a 16:9 picture in PALplus is very costly and requires the use of the two fields of the full picture. Because of this, only expensive TVs such as 100 Hz TV sets can decode the 16:9 mode of PALplus.
For all this, the takeup of PALplus has been marginal, and the future of this standard does not look very bright, since broadcasters are switching to digital television broadcasting (DVB).
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See also
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External links
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