It was at the International Broadcasting Convention that 1250 line 16x9 wide screen high definition television was being demonstrated by BBC Research and Development alongside other major developments.

It seemed as if those early colour images had come to life with a reality which one had never seen before. Playback HD contacted the BBC, and suggested that The Edinburgh Tattoo was an ideal subject for further experimentation and development of the system.

The idea became a reality in 1990 when with much co-operation from the BBC, and the Tattoo organiser, Major Brian Leishman, Nigel Shepherd, Managing Director of Playback HD, moved in to direct the first BBC HDTV coverage of a major event. BBC Research and Development had in their possession two BTS tube cameras at this stage, which were engineered into an old outside broadcast unit alongside four D1 digital recorders.

Nigel, who directed the production, takes up the story. 'I decided that in order to achieve multi-camera coverage the only way was to shoot the same performance on consecutive nights, while hoping and praying that the weather remained the same. I built an extra night into my plans to allow for the unexpected. The unexpected happened and on the final night the heavens opened with torrential rain driving relentlessly into the camera.

'Our 625 colleagues lost the output of each of their cameras one by one, but amazingly both our quarter-of-a-million pound wonders continued to produce pictures, although the camera operators were soaked to the bone.