PAL SIGNAL

On 24 Jun, in article <4g5vapF1l5r6tU1@individual.net>
     spamj_baraclough@blockerzetnet.co.uk "John B" wrote:

>Paul Carpenter scrobe on the papyrus:
>.
>> Last I dealt with anything like that was late 80's and same then as to
>> get equipment for SECAM then was so expensive for them. Even from
>> French manufacturers.
>
>I think there were only two manufacturers of true SECAM mixers. Thomson
>and Cox. Thomson made a killing in Russia as they decided to go SECAM
>for some strange reason (probably something to do with arms trading no
>doubt)

Probably also not American and not British, politics as well.

> and Mike Cox would always go where no one else would dare to
>tread.

Until late 80's when it[1] became part of Abekas Video Systems, which in
turn was part of Carlton Communications another Micheal, Micheal Green this
time.

[1] Cox Electronics his company.

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>              GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>             For those web sites you hate

On 24 Jun 2006 23:14:34 GMT, "John B"
<spamj_baraclough@blockerzetnet.co.uk> wrote:

>Paul Carpenter scrobe on the papyrus:
>
>.
>. 
>> Last I dealt with anything like that was late 80's and same then as to
>> get equipment for SECAM then was so expensive for them. Even from
>> French manufacturers.
>
>I think there were only two manufacturers of true SECAM mixers. Thomson
>and Cox. 

So SECAM studios really existed :-). I always had the (incorrect)
impression that all studios were PAL and just transcoded to SECAM for
distribution.

>Thomson made a killing in Russia as they decided to go SECAM
>for some strange reason (probably something to do with arms trading no
>doubt) and Mike Cox would always go where no one else would dare to
>tread.

PAL was German and the relationship between West-Germany and Soviet
Union weren't very good after the Berlin wall. Paying PAL royalties
for the PAL patents to West-Germany would have been embarrassing.

While the Soviet dominated OIRT countries used the same 625/50i system
as the EBU countries, the VHF channel assignment in OIRT System D was
different from the EBU System B and especially the video-sound
difference was 6.5 MHz while in EBU countries 5.5 MHz. 

While the picture was receivable across the border, no sound was
available on an ordinary receiver and hence the risk for "western
propaganda" was reduced. In totalitarian states it was also much
easier to control the availability of any standard converters (e.g. a
1 MHz oscillator and a mixer) to get the sound.

Using a different colour standard also forced viewers in OIRT
countries to watch the programs in B/W, thus reducing the appealing of
the neighbour country transmissions, when the transmissions from your
own country could be viewed in colour.

Clearly the standard selection was political rather than technical.

Paul
 

>>Thomson made a killing in Russia as they decided to go SECAM
>>for some strange reason (probably something to do with arms trading no
>>doubt) and Mike Cox would always go where no one else would dare to
>>tread.
>
> PAL was German and the relationship between West-Germany and Soviet
> Union weren't very good after the Berlin wall. Paying PAL royalties
> for the PAL patents to West-Germany would have been embarrassing.
>

As soon as I know the reason was technical. SECAM has much better immunity
against distortion and noise while propagates over the pore radio channel.

I do remember when I had dual system VCR I use to keep all my favorite movies
in SECAM just to keep the color unchanged, no matter how many times I watch them.
While you make a copy with PAL you easily get color drops on some frames.
It's not possible in SECAM - picture was crystal clear all the time.

Germany may end up with PAL decision because they were too small to care about
signal quality in comparition with USSR with their thousand kilometers RF lines.

> While the picture was receivable across the border, no sound was
> available on an ordinary receiver and hence the risk for "western
> propaganda" was reduced. In totalitarian states it was also much
> easier to control the availability of any standard converters (a.go. a
> 1 MHz oscillator and a mixer) to get the sound.
Seems you watch to much Fox News or 007 movies. TV standards were
never been problem to sell Hollywood in Europe or Japan, even they hate it.
The same thing for western propaganda in Warsaw block. US did that in SECAM.

Regards,
Jon.

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:59:21 -0400, "tcpip" <dorovskoy@comcast.net>
wrote:


>I do remember when I had dual system VCR I use to keep all my favorite movies
>in SECAM just to keep the color unchanged, no matter how many times I watch them.
>While you make a copy with PAL you easily get color drops on some frames.
>It's not possible in SECAM - picture was crystal clear all the time.

This is strange, since the consumer video recorders do not record the
composite signal, but instead separates the colour difference signals
and store them separately from the luminance signals, which actually
is stored on higher frequencies on the tape. Thus, it should not
matter, if the original signal was NTSC, PAL or SECAM.

Paul

Paul Keinanen wrote:

> On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:59:21 -0400, "tcpip" <dorovskoy@comcast.net>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>>I do remember when I had dual system VCR I use to keep all my favorite movies
>>in SECAM just to keep the color unchanged, no matter how many times I watch them.
>>While you make a copy with PAL you easily get color drops on some frames.
>>It's not possible in SECAM - picture was crystal clear all the time.
> 
> 
> This is strange, since the consumer video recorders do not record the
> composite signal

Perhaps he isn't referring to consumer recorders?  Our old helical Ampex
recorders didn't separate chroma and luma.

Regards,

Michael

Paul Keinanen scrobe on the papyrus:

> On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:59:21 -0400, "tcpip" <dorovskoy@comcast.net>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> > I do remember when I had dual system VCR I use to keep all my
> > favorite movies in SECAM just to keep the color unchanged, no
> > matter how many times I watch them.  While you make a copy with PAL
> > you easily get color drops on some frames.  It's not possible in
> > SECAM - picture was crystal clear all the time.
> 
> This is strange, since the consumer video recorders do not record the
> composite signal, but instead separates the colour difference signals
> and store them separately from the luminance signals, which actually
> is stored on higher frequencies on the tape. Thus, it should not
> matter, if the original signal was NTSC, PAL or SECAM.
> 
> Paul

SECAM is an FM system for colour modulation and therefore doesn't
suffer from the loss of amplitude of the colour subcarrier in the same
way as a PAL or NTSC signal after multiple passes through a magnetic
recorder.

-- 
John B

On 27 Jun 2006 21:40:58 GMT, "John B"
<spamj_baraclough@blockerzetnet.co.uk> wrote:

>
>SECAM is an FM system for colour modulation and therefore doesn't
>suffer from the loss of amplitude of the colour subcarrier in the same
>way as a PAL or NTSC signal after multiple passes through a magnetic
>recorder.

On consumer VCRs, even the luminance is frequency modulated before
being actually written to the tape.

Paul