Bofferbrauer2 said:
Since you're from France, you should also definitely remember SÉCAM, since all french channels actually used that system instead of PAL. Eastern Europe also adopted SÉCAM for political reasons: NTSC was from the Americans and thus not an option, while the neighboring countries from the Warsaw block used PAL. So to avoid the inhabitants to receive that signal, the Soviet Union, and by extension the whole Warsaw block, choose SÉCAM as their transmission standard. |
IMHO your Wiki link doesn't really support that.
It explains SECAM had technical reasons for adoption, from superior color to allowing longer cables between studios and transmitters. It says Soviet Union was involved in development of the standard. While East/West German political situation is mentioned as one way "people have attributed" or "explained" the difference, that is not only explanation given, and since Soviet Union not East Germany had originally co-developed the standard, this "political" explanation seems more likely a post-facto rationalization. As it explains the only inherent difference between PAL/SECAM is in color, so that factor alone wouldn't block viewing/hearing program in black and white, that would be a piss poor attempt at blocking propaganda since color TVs weren't even common for decades after it's introduction. As it also explains, using different standard for black and white and audio components (which is independent of PAL vs SECAM difference) would be actually effective at blocking propaganda, which was actually the case in all Soviet and Eastern Europe countries EXCEPT East Germany and Yugoslova (showing exact opposite intent to blocking signals there, as they are varying from Soviet standard in order to share b&w and audio standard with W Germany).
So it seems people's technical misunderstanding leads them to invent fables about political SECAM, when really it was a cope to ignore why West Germany had lower quality of color TV standard than East Germany/Soviet Union and France, and likely influenced by internal West German propaganda narrative about East, despite East Germany all along was receiving the b&w/audio signals just fine (with most TVs being b&w for several decades later) and eventually moved to dual PAL/SECAM decoders. SECAM seems to have been basis of the would-be next gen analog standards particularly in Scandinavia and 4:2:0 digital video and was even licenced to improve PAL. So it's non-universality vs. PAL seems more of a patent licencing/cost issue.
Of course from perspective of NTSC (and gaming based on that) PAL/SECAM were practically the same.
Last edited by mutantsushi - on 10 October 2020
