Different video formats

I saw a post about PAL and thought I'd chip in my two cents. Doesn't France
have it's own thing? SECAM or something? I had a radiohead VHS that was
encoded in that format, although I didn't realize it at the time. The audio
played fine, but the video was totally messed up, that is, untill the
autotracking took over. After nearly 15 minutes, the picture came in clear
for about half an hour. After that though, the picture blinked out again
and I was not able to get it to work again. The next tape I put in took
nearly a half hour to recover from the tracking nightmare that the SECAM
inflicted. Is it possible to actually do damage to a system that way?

Mook23

On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 02:45:37 -0500, "Mook23" <no_one@no_where.com>
wrote:

>I saw a post about PAL and thought I'd chip in my two cents. Doesn't France
>have it's own thing? SECAM or something? I had a radiohead VHS that was
>encoded in that format, although I didn't realize it at the time. The audio
>played fine, but the video was totally messed up, that is, untill the
>autotracking took over. After nearly 15 minutes, the picture came in clear
>for about half an hour. After that though, the picture blinked out again
>and I was not able to get it to work again. The next tape I put in took
>nearly a half hour to recover from the tracking nightmare that the SECAM
>inflicted. Is it possible to actually do damage to a system that way?
>

SECAM (Sequential Colouer Avec Memoire) encodes colour information,
Red and Blue, as phase-modulated carriers on alternate scanning lines,
and the receiver delays one colour for the space of a scanning line
and combines that with the other colour during demodulation. It is a
BROADCAST standard only. Consumer colour-under formats, like VHS, use
PAL encoding on the chroma. There is no difference whatsoever in VHS
tapes as recorded in a PAL country or under secam. It is only the
player's output that matches the TV in use. There are some differences
in the VHS Chroma standard that cause some tapes to only play in Black
and White.

That French tape is recorded as PAL, just like a British tape. (I
assume you're in Britain, though you didn't say.) There is no
difference, and no, the standard used has nothing to do with the
problems you were having.

... Steve .

Steve(JazzHunter)

"Steve(JazzHunter)" <> wrote in message...
> That French tape is recorded as PAL, just like a British tape. (I
> assume you're in Britain, though you didn't say.) There is no
> difference, and no, the standard used has nothing to do with the
> problems you were having.

I've got a couple of Secam tapes and they both play back in black and white
on my PAL TV set. Unless I play them back using my multi-standard VCR.


--
Best Wishes
Simon (aka Dark Angel)
http://www.realmofhorror.co.uk
Dark Angel's Realm of Horror
Video clips, horror reviews, banned films, video nasties, anti-censorship
issues and more...

Dark Angel

"Dark Angel" <> wrote in message
news:ccckm2$ibf$...
>
> "Steve(JazzHunter)" <> wrote in message...
> > That French tape is recorded as PAL, just like a British tape. (I
> > assume you're in Britain, though you didn't say.) There is no
> > difference, and no, the standard used has nothing to do with the
> > problems you were having.
>
> I've got a couple of Secam tapes and they both play back in black and
white
> on my PAL TV set. Unless I play them back using my multi-standard VCR.
>

It must have been a PAL tape then. I played it back on an NTSC VCR and, as
I first mentioned, the tracking was ****ed for a good while after that
playing. I was surprised that I did get a normal picture after a while.
Interesting, no?

Mook23

On Mon, 5 Jul 2004 17:47:37 -0500, "Mook23" <no_one@no_where.com>
wrote:

>
>"Dark Angel" <> wrote in message
>news:ccckm2$ibf$...
>>
>> "Steve(JazzHunter)" <> wrote in message...
>> > That French tape is recorded as PAL, just like a British tape. (I
>> > assume you're in Britain, though you didn't say.) There is no
>> > difference, and no, the standard used has nothing to do with the
>> > problems you were having.
>>
>> I've got a couple of Secam tapes and they both play back in black and
>white
>> on my PAL TV set. Unless I play them back using my multi-standard VCR.
>>
>
>It must have been a PAL tape then. I played it back on an NTSC VCR and, as
>I first mentioned, the tracking was ****ed for a good while after that
>playing. I was surprised that I did get a normal picture after a while.
>Interesting, no?
>

The borizontal scanning rate is differnt, if a PAL taoe is played in
an NTSC machine then yoou will simply get numerous slanted horizontal
lines due to the head not spinning the correct speed to track the
video sync information. The vertical roll is the tv, being designed
for 60 Hz, not being able to lock to 50 Hz, though some sets can.

And yes, Secam and Pal decks do have differnt colour-under chroma
frequencies, though the method of storing the colour info is identical
with neither using the colour by line encoding of the Secam boadcast
standard. The black and white picture with moire is caused by unlocked
colour carrier in an otherwise locked and stable black and Wite
picture., many units will handle both Pal and Pal-from-Secam tapes and
output correctly t0 a PAL and/or Scam TV. My Sanyo multistandard
doesn't work with Secam recordings other than to show in Black and
White, but my older Sharpe does that just fine. I'm in North Amrerica
but received European tapes for standards transfers.

. Steve .

Steve(JazzHunter)

>The borizontal scanning rate is differnt, if a PAL taoe is played in
>an NTSC machine then yoou will simply get numerous slanted horizontal
>lines due to the head not spinning the correct speed to track the
>video sync information. The vertical roll is the tv, being

>esigned
>for 60 Hz, not being able to lock to 50 Hz, though some sets can.
>

that's strange. Whenevr I tried playing a pal tapes in ntsc vcr's , I always
got just snow for a picture (as though there wasn't any picture signal, like an
off the air tv station while the tv set is turned on) and the sound playing way
too fast.

This was more than one ntsc vcr and more than one pal videotape. And I live in
a country that uses 60hz ntsc as the regular standard.

The only time I actually got a picture signal from a pal source being played on
an ntsc source, where the picture was black and ehite and rolling was when
trying to play a pal video cd. and the sound at or nearly at normal speed on
the video cd.

With VHS tape, it was always no picture and sound played way too fast. making
the sound completely unintelligble.

Waterperson77

I should also add that I have tried it on several tv's also in addition to
several vcr's with more than onee tap and when a pal tape is played on an ntsc
vcr and ntsc tv, it is no picture (except snow) and sound that is way too fast,
like Alvin & The Chipmunks on speed, making the sound completely unintelligble.

Waterperson77