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SECAM

Published: Nov 30, 2006

SECAM (Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire or Sequential Colour with Memory (or System Even Crappier than the American Method ;-)) color TV standard was introduced in the early 1960's and implemented in France. 
   
SECAM uses the same bandwidth as PAL but transmits the colour information sequentially. SECAM runs on 625 lines/frame with the same framerate as the PAL does, 25fps. 
   
SECAM is used in France, former French colonies and in former communist countries in Europe. 
   
Because of its similiarity with PAL (same resolution, same framerate), all of the modern video systems, such as DVD, VCD and SuperVHS use PAL internally (for storing the data in the storage media, etc) and just change the color encoding to SECAM when outputting the signal back to SECAM TV.