SECAM Video System

Developed by French as an outburst of the technologies been developed by Americans or Germans they blazed their own video trail and created a third TV system they named SECAM, which is a French acronym for a phrase having to do with "sequential memory."

The originally developed system had an astounding horizontal resolution of 900 lines which was much more than the earlier two developed systems and is much closer to the system been in the use now that has around 1250 lines. But as the color standard would have took too much bandwidth in order to display the 900 lines, they redeveloped and settled that to 625 lines which was equal to the PAL but quite more than NTSC. The upshot is that the French and Germans are unable to watch each other's TV programs without a converter, even if they live near the border because both the systems are different in nature and can't show the programs and channels without the utilization of a receiver.

Stable Hues and Constant Saturation - SECAM shares with PAL the ability to render images with the correct hue, and goes a step further in ensuring consistent saturation of colour as well.

The advantages that the system contains are higher number of scan lines which gives very good and sharp results to the users of the system. But it doesn't mean that the system is perfect rather it has a few advantages as well like greater flicker due to the lower frame rate. Most TV studios in SECAM countries originate in PAL and transcode prior to broadcasting. More advanced home systems such as SuperVHS, Hi-8, and LaserDisc work internally in PAL and transcode on replay in SECAM market models. Due to one of the two colour sub-carriers being at 4.25MHz (in the French Version), a lower bandwith of monochrome signal can be carried.