#4 - SECAM + Comparison to NTSC & PAL (And a bit about CCIR System L)

[@sundog486]

An important benefit of SECAM was its insensitivity to timebase errors (that are produced in VTRs). That meant that the old monochrome TBCs could continue to be used. The time and phase insensitivity also allowed distribution over old and vast networks (think USSR) without degradation. Its biggest drawback was that it could not be used in post-production. It's impossible to mix or key a SECAM signal, you need either the component original signal (pre encoding to SECAM), or you must decode and then re-encode, causing degradation.

[@snap_oversteer]

SECAM is definitely an interesting color standard, it was also used in Czechoslovakia, but instead of having SECAM VTRs etc. it was all done in PAL, mostly on Ampex and Sony stuff (Czechoslovak national TV had Ampex VR2000 since the 60s with it's logo scratched off) and then converted to SECAM before transmission. So in early 90s all they had to do was to bypass the SECAM converters and we became PAL region.

[@Kohlberger91]

That was also the case in the GDR when it collapsed and joined the Federal Republic of Germany.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

5:37 There was also an issue with video editing by splicing tape together. For NTSC, the cuts could be made at any frame boundary, but with PAL you could only cut at every other frame, otherwise the colour phase would end up inverted.

[@LionelN]

I lived my first 25 years in Alsace, east of France, close to Germany and Swiss. We had TVs with both standards in order to receive the French SECAM broadcasts and the PAL broadcasts from abroad. I have to admit that the PAL broadcasts were always pleasant to see. Don't know if it's a question of standard or the way the broadcasters adjusted the signals, but PAL colors were always more saturated, plenty of colors, while SECAM colors were more desaturated like pastels. And about the music, no comparison : FM sound from PAL was great, especially because stereo was introduced much more earlier.

[@mattstvbarn]

Your experience is common. While SECAM was superior on paper, it was difficult to get it right in practice and often transmission systems and receivers were poorly adjusted resulting in inferior colour. I have not seen this in my own setup. The colours are very nice.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

What sort of stereo sound was used with PAL? Was it the British NICAM digital system? That’s what we had here in NZ.

[@Alozhatos]

That’s why PAL is called Perfect At Last. French L system with inferior AM audio system.

[@Feudorkannabro]

​​@@lawrencedoliveiro9104Depends on the country. The majority of PAL countries used NICAM as the stereo sound standard but some countrirs like Germany used A2/Zweikanalton standard

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

True!! BUT that only applies to the COLOR. There is/was also Sécam B and G in former eastern Germany and systemB/G Pal in western Germany. Yes,there is/was also a system L with PAL!! Just for "fun" i "created" fantom systems like system L positive modulation but with FM sound and NTSC 4.43Mhz color. PAL,Sécam and NTSC were "added" to the already existing b/w systems and unfortunately the "color filter" in the "y" (black and white demodulation) was reducing the bandwith of the b/w channel. So the picture,when color was added,was blurrier. I removed the "color filter" therefore there was the color carrier visible yet a sharper picture of the B/W

[@domozs4370]

At the end of 80's in Poland we had a lot of PAL tv's, especially from West Germany Sperrmüll 😊. Conversion into SECAM was done by added TDA3562A transcoder. PAL introduced @1995.

[@richjames2540]

Good video. 2 points: first the ease of video editing is inverse to the quality of broadcast. It is not only mixing video but editing was a nightmare in SECAM and PAL was a pain. A lot of production in these countries shifted to PAL and was then transcoded to SECAM for tx. Second, SECAM was adopted by France and Russia as they used long distance high power stations which gained from the improved colour fidelity. All 3 systems had good and bad points but I really see PAL as NTSC+, indeed I once owned an early Sony PAL simple/auto set. Enjoyed your post as it is informed… rare these days.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Also PAL-M and NTSC.

[@richjames2540]

Yes, we must not forget Brazil. @@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY

[@Broadercasting]

I lived on the south coast in my teens. French television could be received regularly with an aerial swing to the South East and some modifications of a dual standard TV. Set to 405 lines on VHF, one could tune in to some 819 lines transmissions, albeit with two narrow pictures displayed when synchronised. No sound of course. BRT, Belgium also used positive modulation and AM sound using System C on VHF, so could also be received from modifying the tv set's internal slider to enable 625 lines on VHF, again with no sound; the carrier at +5.5 Mhz, whereas the 405 system was -3.5 Mhz below (simplisticly). Any engineers having experience with turret tuners will know! Turning to UHF and disabling the set's internal slider switch to enable AM sound and positive modulation, one could pick up the two other French System L 625 line channels, Antenne 2 and FR3. Again, no sound for previous reasons. The disadvantage with positive modulation, particularly at VHF, were ignition noise and industrial noise spikes came out as picture white spots, the greater the interference, the greater the white spots! Considerably more noticeable than black spots under negative modulation systems.

[@Broadercasting]

Supplemental. In UK dual standard sets, switching from VHF to UHF also switched from System B to System I: Both line standards and modulation standards *together*. The internal switch looked like a long strip similar to a slide rule operated by a cable. One just unhooked the cable for each of the circuits; 1. modulation in the IF strip and, 2. timebase circuit for line frequency. The high voltages in these sets meant you had to know what you were doing and take safety precautions. #Caveat.

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

System B is the system used in central Europe on VHF. UK had system A on VHF and system I for UHF@@Broadercasting

[@richiehoyt8487]

Of course, unless engaged in 'border blasting', broadcasters tend to want to avoid signal bleedthrough into neighbouring countries, or at least that's the impression I get... Still though, I've always thought it a pity, thinking about it from the standpoint of an average viewer 'in the wild', rather than from the engineering p.o.v., that British TV's couldn't ordinarily decode French signals (or vice versa). It would have been nice for British and French householders to have been able to watch each other's programmes, with only the need for the right sort of aerial pointed in the right direction, and no need for the complicated and fussy (but clever) workarounds you describe. This, of course, is exactly what Irish television viewers who lived near the East coast or the Northern Irish border did. I don't know about viewers in places like Cumbria or Anglesea, or the Isle of Man, but I know many people in Northern Ireland 'returned the favour' -- but only in certain neighbourhoods, since, bizarrely, increasing your choice of TV stations by 50% more or less for free would be seen as a political statement! (The need for an outside aerial mounted high, and pointing in the right direction obviously meant that 'discretion' wasn't an option! Of course, going back to the subject of picking up French TV in England, even leaving aside their incompatible - in - practice SECAM system, one would also be faced with the insurmountable difficulty that French broadcasters stubbornly insist, to this day, on using the French language (probably with an eye to selling programmes to Canada, or something?! 😉 ) I've always been intrigued as well, by France's having an 819(? I can't refer back!) - line system, so long before everyone else, at a time when, as you mention, many British viewers were still getting by with less than half that resolution! I seem to recall Japan having something similar? (TV, you may have gathered, is not my field!) I could just be confabulating, but I seem to have this recollection that the French High - Res (for the time, anyway) system was in Black & White only(?) -- Interesting trade - off, if true...

[@Broadercasting]

@@richiehoyt8487 The French 819 line system had 737 active lines, and was interlaced. (Compare with current 720P!) Indeed, like the UK's 405 line system it was black and white only and the aspect ratio was 4:3. The (VHF only) channels too, were interlaced over Band I and III with a bandwidth of 14MHz. Compare that with the 405 line bandwidth of a mere 5 MHz. Still with air pressure being high, reception was fairly regular at least at VHF in Hastings. Due to licensing, countries did and do minimise overspill. Different line standards and colour systems often meant production and market protection, so set makers in France at a distinct advantage to make 819 line sets. TF-1 eventually ended up on UHF with the rest. I now live in North Wales and occasionally recieve TV from Ireland. The signal makes it's way across the Irish Sea and by complete coincidence, channelled through the Menai Straits to this location. Digital TV in Ireland uses DVB rather than DVB-T2 on the multiplexes. These days of course, with the advent of satellite TV, Distance reception (DX-TV) much easier with a moveable dish and asatellite finder, but that's another story!

[@renejensen5656]

I was at the WM in football in 1998 in france making television for the national broadcaster here in Denmark (still working there) and was on almost on all stadiums with our OB truck. Many of the french OB trucks was PAL composite system, with a PAL to SECAM encoder. I remember that on Bang & Olufsen television set there was a remote command that sometimes was activated, that shifted the IF signal from negative to positive. So now the PAL signal looked like the SECAM signal. Now its a lot easier, no analog transmision. Mostly digital with component HD or UHD signal. All the Phillips equipment you have in the video, are developed here in Denmark. When Phillips sold that division out, it became PTV, and later DK Technologies. Great video by the way.

[@mattstvbarn]

Thanks for the comment. If you hadn't already worked it out, this channel was specifically setup to demonstrate the works of Philips TV & Test Equipment (Denmark) :)

[@renejensen5656]

@@mattstvbarn I have noticed, and I really enjoy the content, since this has been a part of my work for many years now. They did a hell of a good job in Jenagade, and later in Herlev.

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

I used to deal with DK Technologies

[@j7ndominica051]

I remember that in poor reception SECAM showed an intense color noise, but PAL gradually lost saturation. FM sound could be listened to on a portable radio receiver.

[@Knaeckebrotsaege]

I think this is part of what I saw on a few TV DXing videos on here which led me down this SECAM rabbit hole in the first place..? There's for example a TV broadcast from Kyrgyzstan from 2002 on EifelDX's channel, where the signal is often "just right" so that you get bright red-pinkish-blue color salad and flashes all over the BW image till the signal either gets good enough that it just pops back to normal color or goes fully black and white, no fading colors to be seen. If you decide to look up that video, there's some weird music video starting at around 11:30 where this whole "color popping in and out" thing seems especially bad

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

Yeah, those blue and red specks in the picture..

[@Rob2]

Even more weird than system L was the system E used on VHF (819 lines). There the position of the AM sound carrrier (vs the positively modulated AM vision carrier) was alternating between adjacent channels. So, on two adjacent channels the video carriers OR the audio carriers would be next to eachother. It probably prevented interference from vision into audio, but of course that must have been a nightmare for TV set builders, they would have to either have two different IF strips (with mirrored filters) or have to different ranges of local oscillator in the tuner and using upper/lower mixing. AM sound was problematic in itself. One could not use intercarrier sound (i.e. getting the sound from the video demodulator) as it would suffer from extreme interference from the sync. So, a TV set with AM sound required an AM demodulator at the IF, not at 5.5/6.5 MHz. And the TV set had to be tuned accurately enough for that AM signal (with a bandwidth of 20 kHz or so) to be within the AM filter of the receiver. A set with FM intercarrier sound could be way more off tuned because the frequency difference is only dependent on the transmitter frequencies, not on the receiver tuning. So sound was always OK and tuning would only affect the picture.

[@mattstvbarn]

Ah I love to hear all of these weird and wonderful detail stories. Thanks for that!

[@TheDiveO]

The PAL module should be adorned with a spiked helmet *scnr* (looks for certain Asterix volume)

[@steeviebops]

Great video. Another possible explanation for System L using positive modulation that isn't a political one is a technical one. 819 lines was also positively modulated, as was the old British 405 line system. British dual-standard sets were very complicated and not all that reliable, having to support 405 positive modulation, 625 negative modulation, as well as both AM and FM audio. Retaining positive modulation with AM audio on System L could simplify dual-standard 819/625 line sets and reduce costs too.

[@6ECF01]

That is most likely the reason System L used positive video modulation and A.M. sound modulation.

[@6ECF01]

Dual-standrad sets would be needed in the transitional period when the 819 line system was being phased out and the 625 line system was being phased in. This would take abput twenty years, mid 60's to mid 89's.

[@6ECF01]

mid 60's to mid 80's.

[@LostsTVandRadio]

Yes, I'd always assumed that was the reason.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

System K was used in overseas France and former French colonies in Africa. Same as SECAM-D/K from Eastern Europe

[@Pepek94]

Poland used SECAM from 1971 until 1995 due to political reasons. There used D/K. Later switched to PAL and to Polish D1 TV standard.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

China uses PAL-D TV standard, while Hong Kong and Macau used British PAL-I

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Vietnam was used SECAM-M until 1991, now used PAL-D/K, same with China. Czech Republic used PAL-D/K but PAL-B/G for Cable TV.

[@qintusquark4854]

I remember living in the southernmost part of Sweden in the 80s before satellite TV. During nice weather in the summer we could receive both West German (PAL) and East German (SECAM) TV. I got a dual standard Philips TV and I was surprised to find that I needed an almost noise-free reception of the East German TV station before I could get color and then it was either full color or no color when the signal got weaker. The West German stations on the other hand showed color as soon as the sync signal locked even though the picture could be very noisy. No wonder most eastern European countries switched to PAL in the 90's. Today I wouldn't bother watching German TV since everything is dubbed...

[@jensschroder8214]

yes, for reasons East Germany did not want to take PAL. TVs produced in the east could only do SECAM and not PAL, unless the sets were intended for sale in the west. But the television standards of PAL West and SECAM East were black and white compatible. The same FM tone and frequency grid was used. For black and white broadcasts, SECAM switched off the color carrier, PAL did not. After 1990 the Ost broadcasting stations were quickly converted to PAL. DDR1 and DDR2 became ARD and "third programs". ZDF got its own new broadcast chain. who had a SECAM TV lost the color

[@xsc1000]

@@jensschroder8214 In fact only soviet sets were mostly Secam only. Other eastern block sets were PAL/Secam from end of 70s when multistandard ICs became avaiable.

[@jassenjj]

This was probably some kind of protection or threshold in the circuitry of the set. SECAM has some advantages over PAL and one is performance with low signal and poor reception. The typical effect associated with SECAM and low/noisy signal was the "color explosion" - the colors become oversaturated instead of faded. This was quite obvious with the old Russian sets from my childhood where there was a knob on the back of the set to turn off color which was quite useful when there was bad reception to remove the bursts of oversaturated color. Maybe your Philips was smart enough to do it automatically.

[@michaeldavison9761]

My first digital capable TV, a 28" 16:9 Hitachi had undocumented analogue capabilities which I discovered using my first analogue and digital satellite receiver. The satellite receiver could send 625/ PAL to the TV whatever satellite signal was being received but could be set to send in NTSC and SECAM as well and the Hitachi TV would accept them. When a NTSC 525line satellite signal was fed to the TV as 625/PAL motion was jerky which cleared when switched to 525/NTSC and a TINT option became available in the TV's settings menu. When the French analogue satellite 625/SECAM signals were seen, text had noticeable colour ringing which I think must be the origin of the STREAKAM nickname for the system.

[@mtc2300]

I recall we could pick up East German DFF1+2 from Schwerin on the western part of Zealand (Denmark). They transmitted in Secam, but we could watch in black and white and with sound on our PAL tv as the GDR used B/G system and not the D/K system like the rest of Eastern Europe.

[@whophd]

I visited West Germany in 1987 and remember seeing the B&W signals as a kid. Of course your initial reaction is “those Soviets don’t have colour yet” but not quite.

[@ashleydawson5070]

Really interesting Matt, thanks for sharing. It's fascinating to hear about these exotic means of encoding and broadcasting TV

[@stbagn]

I’d be interested to see the difference in SECAM’s arguably better ability to encode and decode color. Specifically the naked eye visible difference on set particularly vis a vis NTSC and PAL chroma dots artifact which in my understanding should be absent in SECAM.

[@johnr6168]

The colour subcarrier patterning effect is absent on SECAM because the 'phase' nature of the colour subcarrier is effectively random. It is visible though, but more as a sort of noise. Unlike with NTSC and PAL however, the subcarrier is always present even in areas with no colour.

[@LostsTVandRadio]

I presume that SECAM television sets were originally more expensive to manufacture than PAL sets. Certainly the market penetration of colour TVs in France was way behind that of the UK during the 60s and 70s.

[@xsc1000]

No, Secam TV set is few cents cheaper than PAL one. Everything is similar, but you dont need so precise delay line like for PAL. But France was just only one country in western Europe that used Secam.

[@LostsTVandRadio]

@@xsc1000 Oh that's helpful to know. Strange that similar sets were typically more expensive to buy in France than in the UK during the 70s, but that may have been due to differences in VAT.

[@andydelle4509]

Another plus of SECAM is that it could be recorded on monochrome VTRs and play back color without the need for time base correction. Even industrial and consumer VTRs for NTSC and PAL must have at least hetrodyne systems to stabilize the chroma signal. The NTSC and PAL broadcast machines started with analog voltage variable delay lines, then went to digital storage when technically available. SECAM VTRs never needed this additional circuitry for color. The problem for NTSC and PAL VTRs was once again, phase errors. I don't care how good your machine shop is, nobody can manufacture a tape transport stable enough to avoid destructive phase errors in an analog color video signal.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

... unless you encode the tape digitally. Tapes are used for backing up computer data, and that works quite well.

[@seancuthbert4587]

I used to modify pal vcr's to record secam by adding a switch to bypass the delay line and switching off phase shifting. Recording would of course have to be done via the scart input connected to a multi standard tv. The recording could also be played by vcr's that had "mesecam" Often used in east Germany and various middle eastern countries.

[@johny.tayl.7325]

Secam fire...😂

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Yes,there is/was also a system L with PAL!! Just for "fun" i "created" fantom systems like system L positive modulation but with FM sound and NTSC 4.43Mhz color. PAL,Sécam and NTSC were "added" to the already existing b/w systems and unfortunately the "color filter" in the "y" (black and white demodulation) was reducing the bandwith of the b/w channel. So the picture,when color was added,was blurrier. I removed the "color filter" therefore there is the color carrier visible, yet a sharper picture of the B/W.

[@stevejagger8602]

I worked in the UK in broadcast television engineering during the 70's 80's and 90's. I always understood SECAM stood for Systeme Europeane contra Americana. Thank you for explaining a video and sound system that I never properly understood the reason for it's existence.

[@johnr6168]

The usual (jokey) one was System Essentially Contrary to the American Method.

[@MickHealey]

My late father was a TV repair man in the 60's and 70's. I don't remember him talking about SECAM, but I do remember him joking that NTSC stood for Never Twice the Same Colour.

[@HughTVDX]

System L was also used in Luxembourg on Uhf so presumably French TV's could pick it up, possibly also Montecarlo. Belgium used system C on Vhf until the late 70's positive vision modulation AM sound 5.5 MHz above the video carrier monochrome only. Until the mid-late 60's the French speaking part would put out 625 or 819 line signals on this standard depending if video was incoming from France or other parts of Europe, weird... Luxembourg on Vhf were also 819 but with +5.5 MHz audio till about 1970. France also had 819 line Uhf filler transmitters with +6.5MHz audio. The 'proper' wideband 819 system was E with sound + or - 11.15MHz.. Yes + or -, depending on the vhf channel!!! On a very marginal/weak signal Secam colour could look better than speckly Pal. French secam colour often had a pinky bluey foggy look.

[@mattstvbarn]

Thanks for that! This kind of info is extremely hard to uncover by simply googling around! It would have been nice if I knew it when making the video.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Belgian’s system C is scrambled version of PAL-B/G.

[@Alozhatos]

SECAM fire/flame when SECAM signal weakened.

[@r.markclayton4821]

From 1997-2007 I had a multiple standard Philips TV a Strong analogue satellite receiver and a steerable dish, so I could receive programmes in different standards directly. Order of merit was: - DMAC D2-MAC SECAM PAL NTSC SECAM was a classic example of the French "yellow headlights" problem where every standard had to be different. The reason why SECAM was adopted in eastern Europe and DDR in particular was so that western colour TV could not be received.

[@mattstvbarn]

So the thinking was that if people from the Eastern block couldn't see that jeans were blue, they wouldn't want them?

[@stephenneal7373]

Not sure if others have posted - but I suspect System L using +ve modulation and AM sound is because the previous French 819 line (System E) system was also +ve modulated and also used AM sound? Would it have slightly simplified dual-standard receiver design - or just been 'what we do'? (The UK also used +ve modulation and AM audio for its 405/50 B&W system - System-A). Weren't the Bell/Cloche filters also related to the compatibility issue? B&W broadcasts in PAL/NTSC have no subcarrier added to the luminance - so deliver a perfectly acceptable B&W picture to a B&W TV (as there are no subcarrier dots or cross-luma). SECAM broadcasts of monochrome B&W content still have subcarrier present added to the luminance, meaning B&W broadcasts were impaired on B&W TVs with no subcarrier filtering (as there was still subcarrier overlaid and this would be seen as dot crawl on monochrome TVs). As a result I think the bell filters are partially there to reduce the amplitude of the FM chroma subcarrier as the subcarrier frequency nears the FM zero points - i.e. where Dr and Db are near zero when the content is in B&W?

[@whaka54000]

it's effectively visible on b&w sets, but not so annoying with a bit of distance. but it's not dot crawl, more like sawtooth crawl :) from my understanding, cloche and anti-cloche filter are used for pre-emphasis/de-emphasis (shown on oscilloscope in this video) but for compatibilty, i remember reading something on "phase" alternation every 4 line. that explain the sawtooth pattern it does.

[@ElectromagneticVideos]

I had no idea that the PAL test pattern had a section (lower right at 3:14) that had deliberate phase errors to make phase errors getting through apparent. I wonder if the TV shown was one of the ones that used various tricks to avoid the various PAL patents. I recall one of those patent avoiding tricks was to still use the delay line, but use it to simply replay every second line and then a NTSC type color de-modulator could be used which of course was not protected from phase errors. Great channel! Just subscribed!

[@mattstvbarn]

It is a Philips TV. I believed they co-owned the patent for PAL so wouldn't expect a non PAL tuner. It's probably faulty. Glad you found it interesting!

[@ElectromagneticVideos]

@@mattstvbarn Oh - yes - I think it was largely the Japanese who did the Pal workarounds.

[@givolettorulez]

@@mattstvbarn Some Early PAL TV sets had a tint control, that basically made the picture molre yellowish or blueish. Having six sliders maybe it has a tint control, or it has a tone control. By the way I still have a PHilips CRT TV and has a colour temperature control, but it works on RGB signals. Maybe on older TVs they did some analog tricks to get a similar result messing with color decodong?

[@g7mzh]

@@givolettorulez It was Sony who used the not-PAL decoder in their early sets. The "tint" control on most PAL sets was simply a colour balance control that altered the drive to the tube, so you could make your picture more reddish or blueish according to taste. (Some modern digital LCD sets have it as well).

[@xsc1000]

No, its a standard PAL TV and it is protected from phase errors, as you can see on the colour bars part that are displayed correctly. The color tint in those control fields just shows little phase error of the R-Y and B-Y demodulator. Those errors are compensated on other parts of picture by PAL switching, so you just loose saturation a little, but in those fields became visible even if the difference is just few degrees. So by those fields you can adjust PAL demodulator just by eye. And they were not only on Telefunken test picture, but were added to Philips one too.

[@xaverlustig3581]

The majority of countries using SECAM were in the eastern block, middle east and Africa, where mostly systems D/K or B/G were in use, thus negative modulation and partly compatible with neighbouring PAL countries, albeit in black&white only.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Overseas France including Reunion, New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna, French Polynesia, French Guiana, St. Pierre & Miquelon and St. Martin, used SECAM-K/K1. Also on former French colonies too.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

South Africa, Angola, Lesotho used PAL-I.

[@AndyDoz]

Stunning video. Thanks.

[@quattrohead]

A good PAL signal on a good Ferguson/Thorn TX10 is probably the best tv picture you could ever see.

[@jonah1976]

No way. The 50hz refresh rate is a huge disadvantage on a CRT. The flickering is painfully obvious.

[@quattrohead]

@@jonah1976 How old are you ?

[@renejensen5656]

Sadly the Ferguson/Thorn product was sh.. component and building quality compared to other TV manufacture. Worked in my youth as radio and tv repair eng, and we saw a lot of those TV. We normally scraped the TV, instead of reparing them, and have a recall within a week.

[@Alozhatos]

I do envy Europe adopted SCART connector for AV system. I live in PAL country in South East Asia which SCART connector is unknown. SCART do offered superior image quality than composite.

[@CrazyTobster]

The RCA cable or rather composite is a superior cable, SCART is poor in comparison. HDMI cable is the standard today.

[@benjib2691]

​​@@CrazyTobster SCART offers RGB video, the highest quality of analogue video, far superior to composite and superior to S-Video. And the connector is pretty sturdy in my experience, never had any issues with it. The only thing that comes close to SCART in analogue video quality is component YPbPr.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Some TVs in PAL countries including Saudi Arabia. video inputs are all RCAs. No SCART. But the TV analog tuner includes NTSC-M, which is also used in Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. Alos brought TV from Saudi Arabia nd shipped to the Philippines. Most TVs here in the Philippines are NTSC-M, some of them are 100V Japanese frequencies.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

3:16 Is that a Siemens set? I think we had one of those, back in the day. Note the touch-operated program selector buttons.

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Well i see the one with the FuBK Testpattern is a Philips and the TV right of it is an older Philips and the set below is a Nordmende Spectra

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

9:10 also Luxembourg nearby border of France, used SECAM-L and also PAL-B/G.

[@static-san]

I've heard that a monochrome TV signal has a comb-like frequency spectrum and the colour encoding for NTSC (and thus PAL) were chosen to "slot in" all those holes. But SECAM's colour modulation spectrum would've looked very different to a comb...

[@christopherhulse8385]

UK used PAL from 1964 in UHF bands IV and V which was a mistake because better coverage without recourse to over 1000 relays and 51 main stations wouldn't have been necessary if VHF Band III had been used instead.

[@patmonahan9619]

In Ireland, when PAL colour TV was introduced in the early 70's , it used the existing 625 line VHF Band I and III transmitters.

[@Alozhatos]

Thanks to System A 405 lines TV. 405 line tv are using VHF.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

@@Alozhatossystem A used AM

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

@@patmonahan9619also in South Africa too.

[@richjames2540]

BBC and ITV wanted to implement a compatible NTSC-A service in the late 50's but the Government insisted they wait for a German system as the UK was trying to overcome French objections to the UK joining the Common Market. Would have saved a lot of money on transmitters work @@Alozhatos

[@SBTKostya2008]

Russia also used SECAM, but used D and K instead of L.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Overseas France and Former French colonies or French speaking countries in Africa, used SECAM-K and K1 instead of L. St. Pierre et Miquelon, French Guiana, Réunion, Saint Martin, New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna used SECAM-K1.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Brazil also used M, but used PAL (NTSC 3.57) instead of NTSC (NTSC 3.58). Argentina used N (625 line version of system M), but used PAL in 3.582 Mhz video carrier (PAL 3.582 instead of PAL 4.43)

[@MSM5500]

Sovok (the USSR) chose SECAM over the NTSC just because the latter one is very susceptible to phase distortions yet unusable in the Soviet transmission lines as the relay TV network there was of very crappy quality.

[@chainswordcs]

neat! my perspective is that i'm a huge nerd about old tech, including hardware, and i've heard reference to SECAM in the context of some PAL retro game consoles' video output options. definitely adding this to my Watch Later

[@davidewhite69]

I believe the Soviets used SECAM as well

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

Mongolia, and former USSR uses SECAM-D/K including Kazakhstan. China and North Korea also used PAL-D/K

[@aaendi6661]

I'm guessing the reason why they have some kind of upside bell curve probably has to do with the fact that analog band-pass-filters typically have a bell curve frequency response, and they're compensating for it from the encoder.

[@ceebee23]

One issue not covered was that SECAM sets needed to identify which line carried R and which carried B ... not always succesfully

[@video99couk]

Did you capture video from a TDS3012? How? Occasionally I have to capture video from SECAM tapes, and rarely does the quality seem much good. Once I had to play a SECAM tape on a PAL machine for an obscure obsolete video format called CVC. I expected the result to be monochrome but when fed via a digital timebase corrector set to SECAM input, by some miracle, one of the recordings had partial colour and one had perfect colour.

[@mattstvbarn]

The video captures from the scope are from the VGA port on the back. I think it is the TDS3GV. Not surprised tape conversions aren't good. Didn't some tape recorders internally convert it to PAL?

[@video99couk]

@@mattstvbarn My TDS3012 doesn't have VGA. Some VHS and Beta machines record in SECAM, some in MESECAM which can then play back on a MESECAM VCR into a PAL TV. I think... It's complicated.

[@mattstvbarn]

@@video99couk Any TDS3000 can have VGA if a TDS3VM or TDS3GV is installed.

[@whaka54000]

@@video99couk mesecam was a JVC mess, they really messed with secam, and added a lot of confusion. in short, in consumer grade video recorder : VCR/SVR, V2000, beta, (don't know for CVC as i never see one) always recorded secam by heterodyne technique. then JVC come with VHS... and 2 possible way of recording secam... incompatible with each other, of course. the first is sub-carriers division frequencies by 4. mainly used in france for monostandard VHS, as it's a cost effective way to record secam. but added complexity and costs when pal/secam VHS come in the market. the second way is heterodyne, and was called mesecam (or sometimes modified secam) was mainly used in countries where pal/secam coexisted, and was a cost effective method to build bi-standard VHS. then the mess continued when VHS-C was introduced... as "mesecam" was never used with camcorders, only pal or secam (meaning the division by 4 method) i guess some consumers in eastern countries got hard headache with this mess JVC did.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

9:48 TV bought from Saudi Arabia doesn’t have SECAM-L. Only NTSC-M, PAL-BG, PAL-I, PAL-DK, SECAM-BG, SECAM-DK only. + AUTO, PAL, SECAM, NTSC 4.43, NTSC video outputs.

[@George10767]

A distortion of SECAM was the "red teeth" effect. Especially evident with women presenters wearing bright lipstick. I am uncertain of the precise reason, but it was evidently due to delayed chrominance. I am not aware that PAL suffered from this effect.

[@crist67mustang]

Very interesting what you write. Let me tell you that in 2012 I bought a 32" HDTV Sony, thinking that brand has a good prestige. But I noticed sake effect you describe, ears of a man on screen like bload, sometimes bloady hands, lips borders as painted makeup, etcetera. Me as graphic designer said to my self _no no no no._ So I changed the purchase of Sony and LG 32", wich is perfect colors in all situations of image. White areas are not exagerated luminousity fir example, and color problems are inexistent. Curiously Samsung black areas (such as shadows, hair) sometimes looks like a ultra dark rare image. Greetings from Santiago de Chile.

[@Alozhatos]

SECAM Fire.

[@debranchelowtone]

Bonjour, baguette, foie-gras, sécam, et cocorico.

[@Alozhatos]

I’m curious about Argentinian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan PAL-N system. N system broadcasts on 625-line but with 6MHz like M system.

[@mattstvbarn]

I was planning to cover PAL-M. But N would be difficult to demonstrate!

[@Alozhatos]

@@mattstvbarnI see.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

VGA TO VIDEO (connected from HDMI TO VGA), VGA TO VIDEO have PAL-Nc/PAL-N, PAL-M, NTSC-J and NTSC. O already tested with TM70 UHF RF MODULATOR and Analog TV phone with selectable countries: Philippines or Japan (NTSC), Brazil (PAL-M), Argentina (PAL-N), Rwanda or French Guiana (SECAM-K/K1), France (SECAM-L), Chinese Shenzhen or Ireland or Hong Kong (PAL-I), Iran or Iraq (SECAM-BG), Russia (SECAM-DK), Vietnam or China (PAL-DK), Cambodia, Singapore, or Europe (PAL-BG)

[@cool386vintagetechnology6]

@@mattstvbarn feed 625 line PAL into a system M modulator. I do it all the time to run my U.S. monochrome TV sets on 625 lines without having to realign the sound IF to 5.5MHz.

[@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY]

@@cool386vintagetechnology6on US Sony Bravia that accepts NTSC and PAL video inputs, try with 625 PAL-Nc and it works on PAL-N as well as 525 Brazilian PAL-M. Also NTSC 4.43, NTSC-J and NTSC-M. Used with VGA TO VIDEO

[@MirlitronOne]

Is it true that SECAM displays were prone to Moiré interference patterns?

[@joman66]

This stuff is over my head but I sure love to learn about Broadcast TV facts.!

[@michaelturner4457]

SECAM, System Essentially Contrary to the American Method

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

NTSC Never The Same Colour.

[@kiltrash1]

NTSC = Never Twice the Same Colour. PAL = Pictures At Last!

[@michaelturner4457]

PAL, Pay for Additional Luxury

[@senilyDeluxe]

Several Extra Colors A Minute Not The Smartest Choice

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Hey thats a good one!!!@@senilyDeluxe

[@altebander2767]

What I'm wondering, doesn't the UK also use positive modulation on their System A? I think I read about that somewhere.

[@mattstvbarn]

@@altebander2767 yes but that was an awful long time ago

[@atmel9077]

It would have made much more sense to use a delay line and transmit one color at a time but with VSB-SC modulation. Like the FM stereo subcarrier but only keeping the lower side band. Phase errors would lead to a decrease in saturation but no color shift.

[@xsc1000]

First Secam versions were in fact like NTSC using AM-SC with only one color difference signal transmitted in each line. But then they started to solve other problems like early VTRs errors and long distance line phase errors and they switched to FM. Secam became too complicated and the quality was compromised.

[@Ianochez]

I was confuse that the translation was about focusing on its difference from NTSC rather than its literal meaning.

[@edgeeffect]

Ooooh! That's why you've got a comedy mustache on one of your boxes!

[@mattstvbarn]

It is originally from Denmark. It's trying its very best to pass its self off as French.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Kenny Everett’s “Marcel” character ...

[@mattstvbarn]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 That is absolutely what I was going for...

[@TheRus13]

Да.В СССР СЕКАМ была основная система.При гигантских расстояниях от телецентра СЕКАМ лучше работала чем другие системы.Модуляция звука была ЧМ.Хотели сделать стерео вещание по звуку на двух частотах разнесённых но что то не стали делать.

[@whophd]

Ohhh! I was hoping you were about to demonstrate how the signal handles various challenges, and give us a close-up. I just wanted to see how PAL handled the phase shift compared to SECAM, and of course NTSC. And then for a bonus you would engineer a scenario where SECAM struggled and the others didn’t - though maybe none existed? Other than dissolve faders.

[@mattstvbarn]

@@whophd I'll probably put this in a future video

[@neilforbes416]

SECAM was an *UNMITIGATED DISASTER!* The French TV stations had to hide the fact that the SECAM system was *SO BAD* that they couldn't use it in studios as the colour image would get severely messed up when switching or crossfading from one camera to another, *Absolute disaster* when trying to do a news bulletin or a live talk show. What the French stations had to do was kit out their studios with *PAL* standard equipment, cameras, vision-mixing desks, VTRs, Telecine players, monitors and such to produce their programmes, then the *PAL* system signal would be transcoded *DOWN* to the *GROSSLY INFERIOR* SECAM system at the transmitter. I learned about this in a magazine called *Video Australia* which was a sister publication to *Electronics Australia.*

[@MichaelKatzmann]

I know this is a little late but KZbin just showed me this video. You say in NTSC & PAL "color is ultimately represented by amplitude". I take exception to this ... yes the color difference signals are in terms of the amplitude of U and V (in phase and quadrature components of the sub carrier) but the hue is the phase of the subcarrier with the saturation being the amplitude of the subcarrier (referenced to the burst).

[@mattstvbarn]

@@MichaelKatzmann but as you rotate the phase the instantaneous amplitude changes. I don't think what I said was incorrect in that context?

[@MichaelKatzmann]

@@mattstvbarn No, you can change the phase of the subcarrier without changing its amplitude ... it will change the hue (not the saturation .. i.e. amplitude).

[@mattstvbarn]

@@MichaelKatzmann there is a diagram in the video addressing this point specifically.

[@mattstvbarn]

@@MichaelKatzmann I think we are arguing over terminology here. I should have said voltage.

[@MichaelKatzmann]

@@mattstvbarn yes, I don't no what you intend by that diagram but its not showing that. The amplitude of both signals .. 'Correct phase' and 'Incorrect phase' is the same, it is just the phase that is different. If you are trying to say that the amplitude of a sinewave varies ... sinusoidally, well yes but the instantaneous amplitude is not the hue, it is the phase. Say I have your sinewave, lets call it amplitude A and a few cycles later I increase its amplitude to 2A, the amplitude at all samples of the subcarrier are doubled but the hue remains the same only the saturation has changed. ... anyway interesting stuff. I worked on PAL so had only a passing knowledge of SECAM.

[@BigA1]

Do the French still use SECAM?

[@Seven7601]

I think no

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Everybody’s gone digital nowadays. Is it DVB-T in Europe?

[@Seven7601]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 I think they use DVB-S1/2

[@Alozhatos]

Now No.

[@mernok2001]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Not everybody, there are still some cuntries that mostly use analog broadcasting.

[@TheRus13]

By the way. Buy a device for tuning the TV "Laspi tt 03". It has both sekam and pal.

[@kFY514]

There are some interesting tidbits that I find are missing from the video: mixing SECAM signals through demodulating and re-modulating color information is not only complex, it also degrades the quality of the resulting signal. For all those reasons, when complex mixing, digital on-screen graphics and things like that started becoming common on television (or perhaps even earlier), every single broadcaster in the world abandoned SECAM as a production format, if they ever used it for that purpose. Everyone operated as a PAL station and transcoded to SECAM just before transmission. It just made way more sense, while preserving the apparent advantages for the receiving audience. Although in practice, PAL usually provided better quality than SECAM nevertheless. As for the consumer equipment - yes, the right way to do OSD over a SECAM signal would be to use the keyed RGB signals in the SCART connector. But many consumer VCRs and satellite tuners just ignored that and mixed OSD (without any color subcarrier) in the composite domain as if it was PAL. The result was awful color trails behind OSD text, but people didn't really care all that much - you wouldn't keep the OSD on screen continuously anyway. Speaking of consumer VCRs, there are actually two ways of recording SECAM on VHS. The official method, used in France, involved separating the color subcarrier and then dividing it (by 4 if I recall correctly) as if it was a digital clock signal, and recording that (perhaps after filtering out the harmonics) as the color-under signal on videotape. That was arguably simpler than the heterodyne used for NTSC and PAL, but it was just something completely different, making it complicated to make a multi-system VCR. So Middle Eastern importers modded PAL VCRs so that they would treat SECAM signals as if it was PAL, heterodyning the color subcarriers. It was rather simple to make it work because PAL and SECAM color signals occupy roughly the same part of the composite signal spectrum. And that's how MESECAM (Middle Eastern SECAM) was born, which is a term specific to consumer VCRs, and despite the name was used not just in the Middle East but in Eastern Europe as well - basically in every SECAM country other than France, making French and Middle Eastern/Eastern European tapes incompatible. On the other hand, MESECAM VCRs could record and play PAL tapes just fine. What's arguably even weirder, encoding of SECAM was never defined for S-VHS, and all S-VHS VCRs in SECAM regions reportedly transcoded SECAM signals into PAL when recording.

[@fredkilner2299]

SECAM has a two input analog MUX. What is wrong with having some Syncing Colorburst like in NTSC then transmit [R G B] [R G B] etc? with a 3 input analog MUX. B&W would be still be compatible. Then if later with better technology you wanted to double the horizontal resolution from the spec frequency you could do [R R G G B B] with first half of R being one pixel and second half being next pixel amplitude. Too bad didn't just make new standard and triple vertical lines so lines go R G B. Then horizontal resolution unlimited and simple. NTSC resolution was so low.

[@kinklesstetrode]

Interesting. Thanks

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Hey you got a nice set!! I endet up making a mustistandard Philips PM5534 for PAL and Sécam...It works well but when it comes to the modulator i am stuck `cause of the vestigial side band filter. Where did you get the PM5680MS. That would be a lot simpler for me than having seperate modulators for each system!!! I need a rack for all of them. System: C L L` G,B D,K I M,N B.t.w i like your videos!! A1!!!

[@RocRizzo]

NTSC = Never The Same Colors

[@blainerussell1737]

PAL = People All Levender PAL = Pay Additional Licence

[@Alozhatos]

@@blainerussell1737Perfect At Last

[@LectronCircuits]

Let's return to analogue television & put everyone on SECAM (very grim). Cheers!

[@timothystockman7533]

Supreme Effort to Counter American Methods

[@richjames2540]

More likely at the time was to counter Allemand (German) Methods. There was contempt in France for the endless delays from Telefunken and their NTSC with a swing burst system... Memories of German behavior in the second world war were still strong.

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Vive la grande moustache française sur votre générateur de mire Sécam !!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍

[@jimbotron70]

PAL was developed as last, so it was technically better than SECAM and NTSC.

[@saumyacow4435]

NTSC = Never Twice the Same Colour PAL = Pay for Added Luxury

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

You know the Yanks call it also: PAL: "Picture Always Lousy" because they dont like their system NTSC called: "Never The Same Color"🤣

[@saumyacow4435]

@@wickie-vickesverige4995 And of course SECAM stood for "Something Entirely Contrary to the American Method" :)

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

@@saumyacow4435 Oh yes i heard it in English and French: "Système Européen Contre AMéricain".🤣🤣

[@trevordance5181]

PAL... Perfection At Last.

[@galen__]

👍

[@paulstubbs7678]

The French being difficult because they could

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Actually France wanted to save their industrie same with cars. In the 70`s when Japanese cars were a threatso they only allowed a certain number cars being imported. But then the Japanese outsmarted France Japanese carmakers assembled their cars in other countries than Japan to "bypass" that regulation. But maybe there was also "pride" involved.

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

Dont forget there is this weard antenna plug called: Pal plug and Sécam plug.🤣🤣🤣🤣 What does a color system have to do with a plug and the already existing b/w sytem is way beyond me because the socalled "PAL" plug is in reality called IEC plug!! How often do Americans say Pal has 625 lines and NTSC has 525 lines.😡😡 Hey dont forget system N !! Pal 625 lines and sound carrier 4.5Mhz so its the same narrow bandwith like system M in USA. Yes there is a PAL M and a PAL N used in south America So just for "fun" i "created" fantom systems like system "L" positive modulation but with FM sound and NTSC 4.43Mhz color. Now whats that???????🤔🤔

[@cool386vintagetechnology6]

Indeed a major irritant is the assumption PAL is 625 lines and NTSC is 525 lines. Number of lines has nothing to do with the colour encoding method.

[@jirioto6089]

Iam talking about resampling in overall audio design today. Its a problem for years and nobody care.

[@clyth41]

That's a Sony.. Not a phillips..

[@johneygd]

I don’t really care about those technical diagrams of these signals. But i do care about the way at how it works. Because instead of carrying all 3 color signals atonce, it only transmits 1 signal atonce, a memory delay line is used to store all 3 recieved colors and synch them to display those 3 colors in it’s (supposedly) full glory because neither off those colors did affected each other. However this cannot not be done on french game consoles as it will cause input lag in games and disabling the delay line would definitely cause rainbow pattern artifacts in moving parts of the image. So that’s why french game consoles do use a scart rgb output to avoid such input lag. But for movies and videos it shouldn’t be a problem to use a sicam signal trough composite video or an rf cable since you don’t need to worry about input lag. To me i consider secam to be the best video format to transmit an rgb signal over antenna or composite video cable in such a cheap alternative way😁

[@whaka54000]

you missed something importnant : none of the 3 colour systems transmit RGB informations. they transmit only red and blue, then green is obtained in the reiceiver by matrixing the level difference between red and blue. pal/secam/ntsc have this in common. france originated scart and direct RGB because you can't mix two secam signal together. and it was originated because of "antiope" caption system. then as scart became common in europe, game console manufacturer took advantage of RGB. as it simply allow to not build a pal/secam coding circuitry... save costs, and gived the best picture possible at the same time.

[@stanleybest8833]

Go back to NTSC and forget about secam, pal, ATSC etc.

[@filiepgeeraert8301]

You are obviously very much in the know on this topic, but the way you present it makes it feel like you are constantly in a rush, which puts me at an unease, and makes it harder to follow your explanation.

[@gowdsake7103]

NSTC rubbish it is that simple

[@harrymartin1661]

It is interesting but you speek to fast.

[@dv_vid]

PAL is the 'Allah-compatible' system, with a picture so clear you see Allah in it.

[@wickie-vickesverige4995]

PAL has NOTHING to do with the resolution!! The resolution depends on the actual B/W system used PRIOR to the color system added!!!