I wrote:

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


William Sommerwerck wrote:

It was actually designed to get around the problems of recording video
images on tape.

It depends upon what you mean by SECAM. SECAM as a color and video encoding
method was designed as you say, to improve video recordings. SECAM as an over
the air transmission system used by France was designed to produce a signal
that could not be received by an NTSC or PAL TV set, would not display any
color nor have any audio. Or vice versa.

This meant that you could only receive French SECAM TV signals on French TV
sets, and French viewers could not receive foreign signals.

Many countries did use SECAM over the air signals that were compatible with
PAL, and except for the color could be received on PAL TVs and vice versa.
(look up PAL B/G versus SECAM D/K).

Two system (PAL/(me)SECAM) TV sets and VCRs were common, and if I remember
correctly unmodifed PAL VCRs could play (me)SECAM tapes to a two system TV
set.

Geoff.

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