SECAM
Encyclopedia
SECAM, also written SÉCAM (Séquentiel couleur à mémoire, French for "Sequential Color with Memory"), is an analog color television
system first used in France
.
A team led by Henri de France
working at Compagnie Française de Télévision (later bought by Thomson, now Technicolor) invented SECAM. It is, historically, the first Europe
an color television standard.
Just as with the other color standards adopted for broadcast usage over the world, SECAM is a standard which permits existing monochrome television receivers predating its introduction to continue to be operated as monochrome televisions. Because of this compatibility requirement, color standards added a second signal to the basic monochrome signal, which carries the color information. The color information is called chrominance
or C for short, while the black and white information is called the luminance or Y for short. Monochrome television receivers only display the luminance, while color receivers process both signals.
Additionally, for compatibility, it is required to use no more bandwidth than the monochrome signal alone; the color signal has to be somehow inserted into the monochrome signal, without disturbing it. This insertion is possible because the spectrum of the monochrome TV signal is not continuous, hence empty space exists which can be utilized. This lack of continuity results from the discrete nature of the signal, which is divided into frames and lines. Analog color systems differ by the way in which empty space is used. In all cases, the color signal is inserted at the end of the spectrum of the monochrome signal.
In order to be able to separate the color signal from the monochrome one in the receiver, a fixed frequency sub carrier has to be used, this sub carrier being modulated by the color signal.
The color space is three dimensional by the nature of the human vision, so after subtracting the luminance, which is carried by the base signal, the color sub carrier still has to carry a two dimensional signal. Typically the red (R) and the blue (B) information are carried because their signal difference with luminance (R-Y and B-Y) is stronger than that of green (G-Y).
SECAM differs from the other color systems by the way the R-Y and B-Y signals are carried.
First, SECAM uses frequency modulation
to encode chrominance
information on the sub carrier.
Second, instead of transmitting the red and blue information together, it only sends one of them at a time, and uses the information about the other color from the preceding line. It uses a delay line
, an analog memory device, for storing one line of color information. This justifies the "Sequential, With Memory" name.
Because SECAM transmits only one color at a time, it is free of the color artifacts present in NTSC
and PAL
resulting from the combined transmission of both signals.
This means that the vertical color resolution is halved relative to NTSC. It is however not halved compared to PAL. Although PAL does not eliminate half of vertical color information during encoding, it combines color information from adjacent lines at the decoding stage, in order to compensate for "color sub carrier phase errors" occurring during the transmission of the Amplitude-Modulated color sub carrier. This is normally done using a delay line like in SECAM (the result is called PAL DL or PAL Delay-Line, sometimes interpreted as DeLuxe), but can be accomplished "visually" in cheap TV sets (PAL standard). Because the FM modulation of SECAM's color sub carrier is insensitive to phase (or amplitude) errors, phase errors do not cause loss of color saturation in SECAM, although they do in PAL. In NTSC, such errors cause color shifts.
The color difference signals in SECAM are actually calculated in the YDbDr
color space
, which is a scaled version of the YUV
color space. This encoding is better suited to the transmission of only one signal at a time.
FM modulation of the color information allows SECAM to be completely free of the dot crawl
problem commonly encountered with the other analog standards. SECAM transmissions are more robust over longer distances than NTSC or PAL. However, owing to their FM nature, the color signal remains present, although at reduced amplitude, even in monochrome portions of the image, thus being subject to stronger cross color even though color crawl of the PAL type doesn't exist.
Though most of the pattern is removed from PAL and NTSC-encoded signals with a comb filter
by modern displays, some can still be left in certain parts of the picture. Such parts are usually sharp edges on the picture, sudden color or brightness changes along the picture or certain repeating patterns, such as a checker board on clothing. Dot crawl patterns can be completely removed by connecting the display to the signal source through a cable or signal format different than composite video
(yellow RCA cable) or a coaxial cable, such as, S-video
. FM SECAM is a continuous spectrum, so unlike PAL and NTSC a digital Comb Filter can't entirely separate SECAM Colour and Luminance
The idea of reducing the vertical color resolution comes from Henri de France, who observed that color information is approximately identical for two successive lines. Because the color information was designed to be a cheap, backwards compatible addition to the monochrome signal, the color signal has a lower bandwidth than the luminance signal, and hence lower horizontal resolution. Fortunately, the human visual system is similar in design: it perceives changes in luminance at a higher resolution than changes in chrominance, so this asymmetry has minimal visual impact. It was therefore also logical to reduce the vertical color resolution.
A similar paradox applies to the vertical resolution in television in general: reducing the bandwidth of the video signal will preserve the vertical resolution, even if the image loses sharpness and is smudged in the horizontal direction. Hence, video could be sharper vertically than horizontally. However, because of the interlacing, vertical resolution is effectively not as great as the number of scan lines. Additionally, transmitting an image with too much vertical detail will cause annoying flicker on television screens, as small details will only appear on a single line, and hence be refreshed at half the frequency. Computer-generated text and inserts have to be carefully low-pass filtered to prevent this.
The first proposed system was called SECAM I in 1961, followed by other studies to improve compatibility and image quality.
These improvements were called SECAM II and SECAM III with the later being presented at the 1965 CCIR General Assembly in Vienna
.
Further improvements were SECAM III A followed by SECAM III B, the adopted system for general usage in 1967.
Soviet
technicians were involved in the development of the standard, and even created their own incompatible variant called NIR or SECAM IV, which was not deployed. The team was working in Moscow
's Telecentrum under Professor Chmakov's direction. The NIR designation comes from the name of the Nautchno-Issledovatelskiy Institut Radio NIIR research institute involved in the studies. Two standards were developed: Non-linear NIR in which a process analogous to gamma correction is used and Linear NIR or SECAM IV that omits this process.
SECAM was inaugurated in France
on October 1, 1967, on la deuxième chaîne (the second channel), now called France 2
. A group of four suited men—a presenter and 3 contributors to the system's development, including De France—was shown standing in a studio. Following a count from 10, the originally black and white image switched to color; the presenter then declared "Et voici la couleur !" (fr: And here is color!) In 1967, CLT of Lebanon
became the third television station in the world after the Soviet Union and France to broadcast in color, utilizing the French SECAM
technology.
The first color television sets cost 5000 Francs. Color TV was not very popular initially; only about 1500 people watched the inaugural program in color. A year later, only 200,000 sets had been sold of an expected million. This pattern was similar to the earlier slow build-up of color television popularity in the USA.
SECAM was later adopted by former French and Belgian
colonies, Greece
, the Soviet Union
and Eastern bloc
countries (except for Romania
, Albania
and Yugoslavia
which used PAL
from the beginning), and Middle East
ern countries. However, with the fall of communism
, and following a period when multi-standard TV sets became a commodity
, many Eastern European countries decided to switch to PAL.
Other countries, notably the United Kingdom
and Italy
, briefly experimented with SECAM before opting for PAL.
for French broadcast signals. The earlier British System A was the only other system to use positive video modulation. In addition, SECAM development predates PAL. NTSC was considered undesirable in Europe because of its tint problem requiring an additional control
, which SECAM and PAL solved. The joke was that "SECAM" stood for "Something exceedingly Contrary to the American Method" versus NTSC "Never Twice the Same Color" whilst "Peace At Last" or "Perfection At Last" could only be obtained through the PAL system. (But another version of the joke expands PAL as "People Are Lavender", "Picture Always Lousy", or "Pay Another License").
Nonetheless, SECAM was partly developed for reasons of national pride. Henri de France's personal charisma
and ambition may have been a contributing factor. PAL was developed by Telefunken
, a German company, and in the post-war De Gaulle
era there would have been much political resistance to dropping a French-developed system and adopting a German-developed one instead.
Unlike some other manufacturers, the company where SECAM was invented, Technicolor (known as Thomson until 2010), still sells TV sets worldwide under different brands; this may be due in part to the legacy of SECAM. Thomson bought the company that developed PAL, Telefunken
, and today even co-owns the RCA
brand —RCA being the creator of NTSC. Thomson also co-authored the ATSC standard which is used for American high-definition TV.
political machinations. According to this explanation, East German political authorities were well aware of West German television's popularity and adopted SECAM rather than the PAL encoding used in West Germany
. This did not hinder mutual reception in black & white, because the underlying TV standards remained essentially the same in both parts of Germany. However, East Germans responded by buying PAL decoders for their SECAM sets. Eventually, the government in East Berlin stopped paying attention to so-called "Republikflucht
via Fernsehen", or "defection via television". Later East German–produced TV sets even included a dual standard PAL/SECAM decoder.
Another explanation for the Eastern European adoption of SECAM, led by the Soviet Union, is that the Russians had extremely long distribution lines between broadcasting stations and transmitters. Long co-axial cables or microwave links can cause amplitude and phase variations, which do not affect SECAM signals.
However, PAL and SECAM are just standards for the color sub carrier, used in conjunction with older standards for the base monochrome signals. The names for these monochrome standards are letters, such as M, B/G, D/K, and L. See CCIR
, OIRT and FCC
(the standardization bodies).
These signals are much more important to compatibility than the color sub carriers are. They differ by AM
or FM
sound modulation, signal polarization, relative frequencies within the channel, bandwidth, etc. For example, a PAL D/K TV set will be able to receive a SECAM D/K signal (although in black and white), while it will not be able to decode the sound of a PAL B/G signal. So even before SECAM came to Eastern European countries, most viewers (other than those in East Germany and Yugoslavia) could not have received Western programs. This, along with language issues, meant that in most countries monochrome-only reception did not pose a significant problem for the authorities.
video tape. It should not be mistaken as a broadcast standard.
"Native" SECAM recording was originally devised for machines sold for the French market. At a later stage, countries where both PAL and SECAM signals were available (notably the Middle East, hence the Acronym "Middle East SECAM"), developed a cheap method of converting PAL VHS machines to record SECAM signals also using the PAL circuitry. A tape produced by this method is not compatible with "native" SECAM tapes as produced by VCRs in the French market. It will play in black and white only, the color is lost. So the world is left with two different incompatible standards for recording SECAM on VHS.
Although being a workaround, MESECAM is much more widespread than "native" SECAM. It has been the only method of recording SECAM signals to VHS in almost all countries that ever used SECAM, including as mentioned the Middle East and all countries in Eastern Europe. "Native" SECAM recording (marketing term: "SECAM-West") is only used in France and adjacent countries. Most VHS machines advertised as "SECAM capable" outside of France can be expected to be of the MESECAM variety only.
signal of about 4.4 MHz is too sensitive to small changes in frequency caused by inevitable small variations in tape speed to be recorded directly. Instead, it is first down converted to the lower frequency of 630 kHz, and the complex nature of the PAL sub carrier means that the down conversion must be done via heterodyning to ensure that information is not lost.
The SECAM sub carrier, being a simple FM signal, does not need such complex processing. The VHS specification requires that it be simply divided by 4 on recording to give a sub carrier of approximately 1.1 MHz, and multiplied by 4 again on playback. A true dual-standard PAL and SECAM video recorder therefore requires two color processing circuits, adding to complexity and expense. Since some countries in the Middle East
use PAL and others use SECAM, the region has adopted a shortcut, and uses the PAL mixer-down converter approach for both PAL and SECAM. This works well and simplifies VCR design.
It is interesting to note that it is often possible to record SECAM video on an unmodified PAL VCR, thus creating MESECAM tapes, which can be played back in color through another PAL VCR into a SECAM TV. Basic PAL VCRs work better for this, ones that are more sophisticated detect the SECAM signal as "not-PAL" and refuse to record it in color. Most PAL VHS recorders, with MESECAM, has been analog tuner modified in western-Switzerland (Suisse Romande). Original tuner is only CCIR B/G reception. Swiss importers added a little artisanal circuit, with specific IC, for France L norm, tuner became multistandard, but VCR record French broadcasts, on air, in MESECAM, the tapes are played in black and white on SECAM players, and SECAM tapes played B/W in these modified tuner VCR. A specific stamp was added on the deck "PAL+SECAM".
is often done in PAL, or in component formats, with the result encoded or transcoded into SECAM at the point of transmission. Reducing the costs of running television stations is one reason for some countries' recent switchovers to PAL.
Most TVs currently sold in SECAM countries support both SECAM and PAL
, and more recently composite video
NTSC as well (though not usually broadcast
NTSC, that is, they cannot accept a broadcast signal from an antenna). Although the older analog camcorders (VHS
, VHS-C
) were produced in SECAM versions, none of the 8 mm
or Hi-band models (S-VHS
, S-VHS-C, and Hi-8) recorded it directly. Camcorders and VCRs of these standards sold in SECAM countries are internally PAL. They use an internal SECAM to PAL converter for recording of broadcast TV transmitted in SECAM. The result could be converted back to SECAM in some models; most people buying such expensive equipment would have a multistandard TV set and as such would not need a conversion. Digital camcorders or DVD players (with the exception of some early models) do not accept or output a SECAM analog signal. However, this is of dwindling importance: since 1980 most European domestic video equipment uses French-originated SCART
connectors, allowing the transmission of RGB signals between devices. This eliminates the legacy of PAL, SECAM, and NTSC color sub carrier standards.
In general, modern professional equipment is now all-digital, and uses component-based digital interconnects such as CCIR 601
to eliminate the need for any analog processing prior to the final modulation of the analog signal for broadcast. However, large installed bases of analog professional equipment still exist, particularly in third world countries. In most cases all processing within the TV-station is PAL and on the output line a PAL to SECAM trancoder is used before feeding the transmitter. This is because switchers and effect mixers can easily handle PAL (or NTSC) but the SECAM-signal can't be mixed in the same way due to the frequency modulation of the color information.
-B/G)
-B) (Kampuchea) (Simulcast in PAL
-B/G) (Simulcast in PAL
-B/G) (Simulcast in PAL
-B) New Caledonia
(Simulcast in PAL
-D/K) (Simulcast in PAL
-B) (Simulcast in PAL
-G) (Simulcast in NTSC
-M) Wallis and Futuna
-B)
(SECAM broadcast to be abandoned by 2011, simulcast in IPTV
/ADSL
and DVB-T
) (migrated to DVB in 2006) (Simulcast in PAL
-G)
or have already finished doing so.
Europe
(migrated in 2001) (migrated 1994–1996) (migrated 1992–1994) (migrated 1992–1999) (switchover on December 14, 1990 because of German reunification
) (migrated in 2000s) (migrated in ca. 1992) (migrated 1995–1996)
(migrated 1997–1999) (migrated 1997–1999) (migrated 1993–1995) (migrated 1992–1994)
Asia
(switched to PAL
-B in 2005)
(migrated 1983–1987)
Africa (for a few years before was simulcast. Ceased in 1992 for PAL
-B/G)
The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and the Baltic countries also changed their underlying sound carrier standard from D/K to B/G which is used in most of Western Europe, to facilitate use of imported broadcast equipment. This required viewers to purchase multistandard receivers though. The other countries mentioned kept their existing standards (B/G in the cases of East Germany and Greece, D/K for the rest).
Analog television
Analog television is the analog transmission that involves the broadcasting of encoded analog audio and analog video signal: one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal...
system first used in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
A team led by Henri de France
Henri de France
Henri Georges de France was a pioneering French television inventor. His inventions include the 819 line French standard and the SECAM color system...
working at Compagnie Française de Télévision (later bought by Thomson, now Technicolor) invented SECAM. It is, historically, the first Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an color television standard.
Technical details
Chrominance
Chrominance is the signal used in video systems to convey the color information of the picture, separately from the accompanying luma signal . Chrominance is usually represented as two color-difference components: U = B' − Y' and V = R' − Y'...
or C for short, while the black and white information is called the luminance or Y for short. Monochrome television receivers only display the luminance, while color receivers process both signals.
Additionally, for compatibility, it is required to use no more bandwidth than the monochrome signal alone; the color signal has to be somehow inserted into the monochrome signal, without disturbing it. This insertion is possible because the spectrum of the monochrome TV signal is not continuous, hence empty space exists which can be utilized. This lack of continuity results from the discrete nature of the signal, which is divided into frames and lines. Analog color systems differ by the way in which empty space is used. In all cases, the color signal is inserted at the end of the spectrum of the monochrome signal.
In order to be able to separate the color signal from the monochrome one in the receiver, a fixed frequency sub carrier has to be used, this sub carrier being modulated by the color signal.
The color space is three dimensional by the nature of the human vision, so after subtracting the luminance, which is carried by the base signal, the color sub carrier still has to carry a two dimensional signal. Typically the red (R) and the blue (B) information are carried because their signal difference with luminance (R-Y and B-Y) is stronger than that of green (G-Y).
SECAM differs from the other color systems by the way the R-Y and B-Y signals are carried.
First, SECAM uses frequency modulation
Frequency modulation
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant...
to encode chrominance
Chrominance
Chrominance is the signal used in video systems to convey the color information of the picture, separately from the accompanying luma signal . Chrominance is usually represented as two color-difference components: U = B' − Y' and V = R' − Y'...
information on the sub carrier.
Second, instead of transmitting the red and blue information together, it only sends one of them at a time, and uses the information about the other color from the preceding line. It uses a delay line
Delay line
Delay line may refer to:* Propagation delay, the length of time taken for something to reach its destination* Analog delay line, used to delay a signal...
, an analog memory device, for storing one line of color information. This justifies the "Sequential, With Memory" name.
Because SECAM transmits only one color at a time, it is free of the color artifacts present in NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
and PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
resulting from the combined transmission of both signals.
This means that the vertical color resolution is halved relative to NTSC. It is however not halved compared to PAL. Although PAL does not eliminate half of vertical color information during encoding, it combines color information from adjacent lines at the decoding stage, in order to compensate for "color sub carrier phase errors" occurring during the transmission of the Amplitude-Modulated color sub carrier. This is normally done using a delay line like in SECAM (the result is called PAL DL or PAL Delay-Line, sometimes interpreted as DeLuxe), but can be accomplished "visually" in cheap TV sets (PAL standard). Because the FM modulation of SECAM's color sub carrier is insensitive to phase (or amplitude) errors, phase errors do not cause loss of color saturation in SECAM, although they do in PAL. In NTSC, such errors cause color shifts.
The color difference signals in SECAM are actually calculated in the YDbDr
YDbDr
YDbDr, sometimes written YDBDR, is the colour space used in the SÉCAM analog terrestrial colour television broadcasting standard, which is used in France and some countries of the former Eastern Bloc. It is very close to YUV and its related colour spaces such as YIQ , YPbPr and YCbCr.YDbDr is...
color space
Color space
A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers, typically as three or four values or color components...
, which is a scaled version of the YUV
YUV
YUV is a color space typically used as part of a color image pipeline. It encodes a color image or video taking human perception into account, allowing reduced bandwidth for chrominance components, thereby typically enabling transmission errors or compression artifacts to be more efficiently...
color space. This encoding is better suited to the transmission of only one signal at a time.
FM modulation of the color information allows SECAM to be completely free of the dot crawl
Dot crawl
Dot crawl is the popular name for a visual defect of color analog video standards when signals are transmitted as composite video, as in terrestrial broadcast television. It consists of animated checkerboard patterns which appear along vertical color transitions...
problem commonly encountered with the other analog standards. SECAM transmissions are more robust over longer distances than NTSC or PAL. However, owing to their FM nature, the color signal remains present, although at reduced amplitude, even in monochrome portions of the image, thus being subject to stronger cross color even though color crawl of the PAL type doesn't exist.
Though most of the pattern is removed from PAL and NTSC-encoded signals with a comb filter
Comb filter
In signal processing, a comb filter adds a delayed version of a signal to itself, causing constructive and destructive interference. The frequency response of a comb filter consists of a series of regularly spaced spikes, giving the appearance of a comb....
by modern displays, some can still be left in certain parts of the picture. Such parts are usually sharp edges on the picture, sudden color or brightness changes along the picture or certain repeating patterns, such as a checker board on clothing. Dot crawl patterns can be completely removed by connecting the display to the signal source through a cable or signal format different than composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
(yellow RCA cable) or a coaxial cable, such as, S-video
S-Video
Separate Video, more commonly known as S-Video and Y/C, is often referred to by JVC as both an S-VHS connector and as Super Video. It is an analog video transmission scheme, in which video information is encoded on two channels: luma and chroma...
. FM SECAM is a continuous spectrum, so unlike PAL and NTSC a digital Comb Filter can't entirely separate SECAM Colour and Luminance
The idea of reducing the vertical color resolution comes from Henri de France, who observed that color information is approximately identical for two successive lines. Because the color information was designed to be a cheap, backwards compatible addition to the monochrome signal, the color signal has a lower bandwidth than the luminance signal, and hence lower horizontal resolution. Fortunately, the human visual system is similar in design: it perceives changes in luminance at a higher resolution than changes in chrominance, so this asymmetry has minimal visual impact. It was therefore also logical to reduce the vertical color resolution.
A similar paradox applies to the vertical resolution in television in general: reducing the bandwidth of the video signal will preserve the vertical resolution, even if the image loses sharpness and is smudged in the horizontal direction. Hence, video could be sharper vertically than horizontally. However, because of the interlacing, vertical resolution is effectively not as great as the number of scan lines. Additionally, transmitting an image with too much vertical detail will cause annoying flicker on television screens, as small details will only appear on a single line, and hence be refreshed at half the frequency. Computer-generated text and inserts have to be carefully low-pass filtered to prevent this.
History
Work on SECAM began in 1956. The technology was ready by the end of the fifties, but this was too soon for a wide introduction. Initially, a version of SECAM for the French 819-line television standard was devised and tested, but not introduced. Following a pan-European agreement to introduce color TV only in 625 lines, France had to start the conversion by switching over to a 625-line television standard, which happened at the beginning of the 1960s with the introduction of a second network.The first proposed system was called SECAM I in 1961, followed by other studies to improve compatibility and image quality.
These improvements were called SECAM II and SECAM III with the later being presented at the 1965 CCIR General Assembly in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
Further improvements were SECAM III A followed by SECAM III B, the adopted system for general usage in 1967.
Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
technicians were involved in the development of the standard, and even created their own incompatible variant called NIR or SECAM IV, which was not deployed. The team was working in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
's Telecentrum under Professor Chmakov's direction. The NIR designation comes from the name of the Nautchno-Issledovatelskiy Institut Radio NIIR research institute involved in the studies. Two standards were developed: Non-linear NIR in which a process analogous to gamma correction is used and Linear NIR or SECAM IV that omits this process.
SECAM was inaugurated in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on October 1, 1967, on la deuxième chaîne (the second channel), now called France 2
France 2
France 2 is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4, France 5 and France Ô...
. A group of four suited men—a presenter and 3 contributors to the system's development, including De France—was shown standing in a studio. Following a count from 10, the originally black and white image switched to color; the presenter then declared "Et voici la couleur !" (fr: And here is color!) In 1967, CLT of Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
became the third television station in the world after the Soviet Union and France to broadcast in color, utilizing the French SECAM
SECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....
technology.
The first color television sets cost 5000 Francs. Color TV was not very popular initially; only about 1500 people watched the inaugural program in color. A year later, only 200,000 sets had been sold of an expected million. This pattern was similar to the earlier slow build-up of color television popularity in the USA.
SECAM was later adopted by former French and Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
colonies, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and Eastern bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
countries (except for Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
which used PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
from the beginning), and Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern countries. However, with the fall of communism
Revolutions of 1989
The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...
, and following a period when multi-standard TV sets became a commodity
Commodity
In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services....
, many Eastern European countries decided to switch to PAL.
Other countries, notably the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, briefly experimented with SECAM before opting for PAL.
Development
Some have argued that the primary motivation for the development of SECAM in France was to protect French television equipment manufacturers. However, incompatibility had started with the earlier decision to unusually adopt positive video modulationVideo modulation
In Amplitude Modulated broadcast analogue television systems it is possible to modulate the video signal two ways.-See also:TV systems* NTSC and NTSC-JColour encoding systems* PAL* SECAMConnectors* SCART...
for French broadcast signals. The earlier British System A was the only other system to use positive video modulation. In addition, SECAM development predates PAL. NTSC was considered undesirable in Europe because of its tint problem requiring an additional control
Tint control
Because the NTSC color television standard relies on the absolute phase of the color information, color errors occur when the phase of the video signal is altered between source and receiver...
, which SECAM and PAL solved. The joke was that "SECAM" stood for "Something exceedingly Contrary to the American Method" versus NTSC "Never Twice the Same Color" whilst "Peace At Last" or "Perfection At Last" could only be obtained through the PAL system. (But another version of the joke expands PAL as "People Are Lavender", "Picture Always Lousy", or "Pay Another License").
Nonetheless, SECAM was partly developed for reasons of national pride. Henri de France's personal charisma
Charisma
The term charisma has two senses: 1) compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others, 2) a divinely conferred power or talent. For some theological usages the term is rendered charism, with a meaning the same as sense 2...
and ambition may have been a contributing factor. PAL was developed by Telefunken
Telefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...
, a German company, and in the post-war De Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
era there would have been much political resistance to dropping a French-developed system and adopting a German-developed one instead.
Unlike some other manufacturers, the company where SECAM was invented, Technicolor (known as Thomson until 2010), still sells TV sets worldwide under different brands; this may be due in part to the legacy of SECAM. Thomson bought the company that developed PAL, Telefunken
Telefunken
Telefunken is a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft...
, and today even co-owns the RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
brand —RCA being the creator of NTSC. Thomson also co-authored the ATSC standard which is used for American high-definition TV.
Why SECAM elsewhere?
The adoption of SECAM in Eastern Europe has been attributed to Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
political machinations. According to this explanation, East German political authorities were well aware of West German television's popularity and adopted SECAM rather than the PAL encoding used in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
. This did not hinder mutual reception in black & white, because the underlying TV standards remained essentially the same in both parts of Germany. However, East Germans responded by buying PAL decoders for their SECAM sets. Eventually, the government in East Berlin stopped paying attention to so-called "Republikflucht
Republikflucht
"Republikflucht" and "Republikflüchtling" were the terms used by authorities in the German Democratic Republic to describe the process of and the person leaving the GDR for a life in West Germany or any other Western country .The term...
via Fernsehen", or "defection via television". Later East German–produced TV sets even included a dual standard PAL/SECAM decoder.
Another explanation for the Eastern European adoption of SECAM, led by the Soviet Union, is that the Russians had extremely long distribution lines between broadcasting stations and transmitters. Long co-axial cables or microwave links can cause amplitude and phase variations, which do not affect SECAM signals.
However, PAL and SECAM are just standards for the color sub carrier, used in conjunction with older standards for the base monochrome signals. The names for these monochrome standards are letters, such as M, B/G, D/K, and L. See CCIR
ITU-R
The ITU Radiocommunication Sector is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunication Union and is responsible for radio communication....
, OIRT and FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(the standardization bodies).
These signals are much more important to compatibility than the color sub carriers are. They differ by AM
Amplitude modulation
Amplitude modulation is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. AM works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in relation to the information being sent...
or FM
Frequency modulation
In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant...
sound modulation, signal polarization, relative frequencies within the channel, bandwidth, etc. For example, a PAL D/K TV set will be able to receive a SECAM D/K signal (although in black and white), while it will not be able to decode the sound of a PAL B/G signal. So even before SECAM came to Eastern European countries, most viewers (other than those in East Germany and Yugoslavia) could not have received Western programs. This, along with language issues, meant that in most countries monochrome-only reception did not pose a significant problem for the authorities.
L, B/G, D/K, H (broadcast)
There are five varieties of SECAM:- French SECAM (SECAM-L)
- French SECAM (SECAM-L) is used only in France, Luxembourg (only RTL9 on CH 21 from Dudelange) and Tele Monte-Carlo Transmitters in the south of France
- SECAM-B/G
- SECAM-B/G is/was used in parts of the Middle EastMiddle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, former East Germany and GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
- SECAM-B/G is/was used in parts of the Middle East
- SECAM D/K
- SECAM D/K is used in the Commonwealth of Independent StatesCommonwealth of Independent StatesThe Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....
and parts of Eastern Europe (this is simply SECAM used with the D and K monochrome TV transmission standards) although most Eastern European countries have now migrated to other systems.
- SECAM D/K is used in the Commonwealth of Independent States
- SECAM-H
- Around 1983–1984 a new color identification standard ("Line SECAM or SECAM-H") has been introduced in order to make more space available inside the signal for adding teletextTeletextTeletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
information (originally according to the AntiopeAntiope (teletext)Antiope was a French teletext standard in the 1980s. It also formed the basis for the display standard used in the French videotex service Minitel....
standard). Identification bursts have been made per-line (like in PAL) rather than per-picture. Very old SECAM TV sets might not be able to display color for today's broadcasts. Although any sets manufactured after the mid-1970s should be able to receive either variant.
- Around 1983–1984 a new color identification standard ("Line SECAM or SECAM-H") has been introduced in order to make more space available inside the signal for adding teletext
- SECAM-K
- France also introduced the SECAM standard to its dependencies. However, the SECAM standard used in France's overseas possessions (as well as African countries that were once ruled by France) was slightly different from the SECAM used in Metropolitan France. The SECAM standard used in Metropolitan France used the SECAM-L and a variant of the channel information for VHF channels 2-10. French overseas possessions and many French-speaking African countries use the SECAM-K standard and a mutually incompatible variant of the channel information for VHF channels 4-9 (not channels 2-10).
MESECAM (home recording)
MESECAM is a method of recording SECAM color signals onto VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
video tape. It should not be mistaken as a broadcast standard.
"Native" SECAM recording was originally devised for machines sold for the French market. At a later stage, countries where both PAL and SECAM signals were available (notably the Middle East, hence the Acronym "Middle East SECAM"), developed a cheap method of converting PAL VHS machines to record SECAM signals also using the PAL circuitry. A tape produced by this method is not compatible with "native" SECAM tapes as produced by VCRs in the French market. It will play in black and white only, the color is lost. So the world is left with two different incompatible standards for recording SECAM on VHS.
Although being a workaround, MESECAM is much more widespread than "native" SECAM. It has been the only method of recording SECAM signals to VHS in almost all countries that ever used SECAM, including as mentioned the Middle East and all countries in Eastern Europe. "Native" SECAM recording (marketing term: "SECAM-West") is only used in France and adjacent countries. Most VHS machines advertised as "SECAM capable" outside of France can be expected to be of the MESECAM variety only.
Technical background
The luminance signal is recorded in its original form (albeit with some reduction of bandwidth) but the chrominanceChrominance
Chrominance is the signal used in video systems to convey the color information of the picture, separately from the accompanying luma signal . Chrominance is usually represented as two color-difference components: U = B' − Y' and V = R' − Y'...
signal of about 4.4 MHz is too sensitive to small changes in frequency caused by inevitable small variations in tape speed to be recorded directly. Instead, it is first down converted to the lower frequency of 630 kHz, and the complex nature of the PAL sub carrier means that the down conversion must be done via heterodyning to ensure that information is not lost.
The SECAM sub carrier, being a simple FM signal, does not need such complex processing. The VHS specification requires that it be simply divided by 4 on recording to give a sub carrier of approximately 1.1 MHz, and multiplied by 4 again on playback. A true dual-standard PAL and SECAM video recorder therefore requires two color processing circuits, adding to complexity and expense. Since some countries in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
use PAL and others use SECAM, the region has adopted a shortcut, and uses the PAL mixer-down converter approach for both PAL and SECAM. This works well and simplifies VCR design.
It is interesting to note that it is often possible to record SECAM video on an unmodified PAL VCR, thus creating MESECAM tapes, which can be played back in color through another PAL VCR into a SECAM TV. Basic PAL VCRs work better for this, ones that are more sophisticated detect the SECAM signal as "not-PAL" and refuse to record it in color. Most PAL VHS recorders, with MESECAM, has been analog tuner modified in western-Switzerland (Suisse Romande). Original tuner is only CCIR B/G reception. Swiss importers added a little artisanal circuit, with specific IC, for France L norm, tuner became multistandard, but VCR record French broadcasts, on air, in MESECAM, the tapes are played in black and white on SECAM players, and SECAM tapes played B/W in these modified tuner VCR. A specific stamp was added on the deck "PAL+SECAM".
Problems with the standard
Unlike PAL or NTSC, analog SECAM television cannot easily be edited in its native analog form. Because it uses frequency modulation, SECAM is not linear with respect to the input image (this is also what protects it against signal distortion), so electrically mixing two (synchronized) SECAM signals does not yield a valid SECAM signal, unlike with analog PAL or NTSC. For this reason, to mix two SECAM signals, they must be demodulated, the demodulated signals mixed, and are remodulated again. Hence, post-productionPost-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
is often done in PAL, or in component formats, with the result encoded or transcoded into SECAM at the point of transmission. Reducing the costs of running television stations is one reason for some countries' recent switchovers to PAL.
Most TVs currently sold in SECAM countries support both SECAM and PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
, and more recently composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
NTSC as well (though not usually broadcast
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
NTSC, that is, they cannot accept a broadcast signal from an antenna). Although the older analog camcorders (VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
, VHS-C
VHS-C
VHS-C is the compact VHS videocassette format introduced in 1982 and used primarily for consumer-grade compact analog recording camcorders. The format is based on the same video tape as is used in VHS, and can be played back in a standard VHS VCR with an adapter...
) were produced in SECAM versions, none of the 8 mm
8 mm video format
The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats for the NTSC and PAL/SECAM television systems. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8 , as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8.Their user base...
or Hi-band models (S-VHS
S-VHS
S-VHS is an improved version of the VHS standard for consumer-level analog recording videocassettes. It was introduced by JVC in Japan in April 1987 with the HR-S7000 VCR and certain overseas markets soon afterwards...
, S-VHS-C, and Hi-8) recorded it directly. Camcorders and VCRs of these standards sold in SECAM countries are internally PAL. They use an internal SECAM to PAL converter for recording of broadcast TV transmitted in SECAM. The result could be converted back to SECAM in some models; most people buying such expensive equipment would have a multistandard TV set and as such would not need a conversion. Digital camcorders or DVD players (with the exception of some early models) do not accept or output a SECAM analog signal. However, this is of dwindling importance: since 1980 most European domestic video equipment uses French-originated SCART
SCART
SCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual equipment together...
connectors, allowing the transmission of RGB signals between devices. This eliminates the legacy of PAL, SECAM, and NTSC color sub carrier standards.
In general, modern professional equipment is now all-digital, and uses component-based digital interconnects such as CCIR 601
CCIR 601
ITU-R Recommendation BT.601, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 601 or BT.601 is a standard published in 1982 by International Telecommunication Union - Radiocommunications sector for encoding interlaced analog video signals in digital video form...
to eliminate the need for any analog processing prior to the final modulation of the analog signal for broadcast. However, large installed bases of analog professional equipment still exist, particularly in third world countries. In most cases all processing within the TV-station is PAL and on the output line a PAL to SECAM trancoder is used before feeding the transmitter. This is because switchers and effect mixers can easily handle PAL (or NTSC) but the SECAM-signal can't be mixed in the same way due to the frequency modulation of the color information.
Countries and territories that use SECAM
This is a list of nations that currently authorize the use of the SECAM standard for television broadcasting. Nations that have moved to PAL or DVB-T are listed separately.Africa
Republic of Congo Democratic Republic of Congo (Simulcast in PALPAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B/G)
Asia-Pacific
(Simulcast in PALPAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B) (Kampuchea) (Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B/G) (Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B/G) (Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B) New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
(Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-D/K) (Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B) (Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-G) (Simulcast in NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
-M) Wallis and Futuna
Wallis and Futuna
Wallis and Futuna, officially the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands , is a Polynesian French island territory in the South Pacific between Tuvalu to the northwest, Rotuma of Fiji to the west, the main part of Fiji to the southwest, Tonga to the southeast,...
Europe
(migrated to DVB in 2007) (Simulcast in PALPAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B)
(SECAM broadcast to be abandoned by 2011, simulcast in IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
/ADSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
Asymmetric digital subscriber line is a type of digital subscriber line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. It does this by utilizing frequencies that are not used by a voice...
and DVB-T
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
) (migrated to DVB in 2006) (Simulcast in PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-G)
Migration from SECAM to PAL
Some former SECAM countries are in the process of migrating to PALPAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
or have already finished doing so.
Europe
(migrated in 2001) (migrated 1994–1996) (migrated 1992–1994) (migrated 1992–1999) (switchover on December 14, 1990 because of German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
) (migrated in 2000s) (migrated in ca. 1992) (migrated 1995–1996)
(migrated 1997–1999) (migrated 1997–1999) (migrated 1993–1995) (migrated 1992–1994)
Asia
(switched to PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B in 2005)
(migrated 1983–1987)
Africa (for a few years before was simulcast. Ceased in 1992 for PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-B/G)
The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and the Baltic countries also changed their underlying sound carrier standard from D/K to B/G which is used in most of Western Europe, to facilitate use of imported broadcast equipment. This required viewers to purchase multistandard receivers though. The other countries mentioned kept their existing standards (B/G in the cases of East Germany and Greece, D/K for the rest).