Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Don't think anyone with sense claims any of these are universally
superior. Each had merits and de-merits.

Think it goes something like this:-

NTSC gives the best pictures in the studio.
SECAM records best.
PAL transmits best.

The reality is much more mundane. NTSC was perfectly fine. It gained a bad
reputation becuase of problems in distribution, which were managment issues,
not technical ones.

The BBC, adopted the original NTSC specification calling it PAL. It included
the alternating line phase (hence the name), that was found to be unecessary
in the US.

For what may have been a good technical reason when the 405 line system was
developed in the 1930's, by the time the new system was designed around 1960,
there was absolutely no technical reason that the US system, as implemented,
would not work in the UK. (50 fields/25 frames versus 60 and 30).

The political reason was to keep the UK electronics companies in work, to
avoid cheap sets made in much larger quantities in the US. At that time,
there was no electronics industry to speak of in Japan, so it was not a threat.

The PAL is better hype was exactly that, it was to make you think that
technically it was different than NTSC and ripping off the british public was
a good thing.

SECAM on the other hand really was designed to make TV Sets incompatible
with NTSC/PAL and more expensive.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to misquote it.