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What was the first country / broadcaster to go widescreen 14:9 or 16:9?


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Old Today, 00:44
Zeropoint1
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Which was the first country and broadcaster to switch to producing and broadcasting the vast majority of programmes in widescreen 16:9 or 14:9?

To potentially answer my own question I believe it may be the UK in the early 90's with 14:9 on many programmes, but I know the BBC went 16:9 on a lot in 1998 with the launch of digital television.
But obviously I know there are plenty of people here who know far more.
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Old Today, 01:19
pakokelso93
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Japan had an analogue 16:9/HD system in the 80's.
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Unread Today, 07:40
Mark C
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Which was the first country and broadcaster to switch to producing and broadcasting the vast majority of programmes in widescreen 16:9 or 14:9?

To potentially answer my own question I believe it may be the UK in the early 90's with 14:9 on many programmes, but I know the BBC went 16:9 on a lot in 1998 with the launch of digital television.
But obviously I know there are plenty of people here who know far more.
Many of the 14:9 broadcasts in the 90s were simply 4:3 programmes with a 14:9 mask applied. The BBC in particular were experimenting with 'softening up' viewers with 14:9 letterbox, knowing that when 16:9 anamorphic broadcasts eventually came along with digital platforms, a compromise AR would be required for analogue.

Therefore from 1998 when digital TV launched, and anamorphic 16:9 broadcasts
were simulcast on analogue as 14:9, that persisted all the way to DSO in 2012.

The first regular 16:9 (deep letterbox) broadcasts that appeared in the UK, were
C4's PAL-Plus programmes and films, Autumn 1994
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Unread Today, 08:38
inothernews
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I can remember an old edition of the ITV yearbook showed a picture of widescreen tests. I think the last copy I ever bought was 1985, so it was either that year, or earlier, but it seemed to take a lifetime for it to progress (in the UK) from that mention in the yearbook to the first programmes appearing (1993?)
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