Were there only SECAM 2600 in France?

[Secamline]

Living in France, all my old (I mean... classic) videogame consoles connect to the TV with a SCART connector, save for my Atari 2600, which has a PAL antenna connector. I don't think it was imported, so were PAL and SECAM Atari 2600 both sold in France at the time?

[+x=usr(1536)]

Point taken, but remember that SCART didn't always exist

 

The PAL TV connector that you're talking about was pretty much standard across transmission formats in Europe. It didn't matter if the country was PAL or SECAM, it just fed the signal from the 2600 into the TV.

 

Anyway, to answer your question: as far as I know, France only received SECAM models.

[Secamline]

SECAM was invented 14 years prior to the release of the 2600 in Europe so I assume it was widely spread in the country. Still I've never seen such a thing as a SECAM VCS.

[+x=usr(1536)]

SECAM was invented 14 years prior to the release of the 2600 in Europe so I assume it was widely spread in the country. Still I've never seen such a thing as a SECAM VCS.

 

True, but your original question asked about SECAM 2600s using a PAL TV connector instead of SCART.

 

We had SCART in PAL countries, too The connection type had nothing to do with the TV scan the 2600 would output.

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

SECAM was invented 14 years prior to the release of the 2600 in Europe so I assume it was widely spread in the country. Still I've never seen such a thing as a SECAM VCS.

 

Afaik, there was only secam version when the 2600 was *officially* sold in france. When french tv became multistandard pal/secam, for obvious reasons they favored pal 2600. As stated by x=usr... both pal and secam have the same coax connector. Afaik, only some 2600 junior were equipped with a scart connector, which was a french exception.

 

Si on n'a pas bien compris ta question, tu peux me la poser en français

Edited March 8, 2018 by Cambouis de l'Atari

[carlsson]

Remember that PAL and SECAM are colouring encoding formats, SCART is a connector that has several inputs and outputs, RF is a modulated antenna signal that is one of the few SCART doesn't carry. Both your composite video (or S-Video) that you can route through SCART, and your RF signal will have a colouring encoding format on the signal. So it isn't really either or, it is more like a three dimensional matrix of different properties, of which some combinations exist and some don't.

 

Since 3D is a little hard to draw, I expanded it into 2D universe where the matrix would look something like this:

        Coax  RCA  Mini-DIN  SCART
PAL       v     v       v       v
NTSC      v     v       v       -
SECAM     v     ?       ?       ?
 
         Coax  RCA  Mini-DIN  SCART
RF        v     1       -       -
Comp      -     v       ?       v
S-Video   -     v       v       2
RGB       -     -       -       v
 
1) Usually requires adapter to some form of coax anyway
2) Only supported on TV:s with at least 2 SCART inputs
 
         PAL   NTSC   SECAM
RF        v     v       v
Comp      v     v       ?
S-Video   v     v       ?
RGB       v     ?       ?

[high voltage]

I just yahooed Secam, wow that system was worldwide

[Secamline]

This is more complex than I expected ^^" So both SECAM and PAL 2600 models have the same video output?

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

Yes they have the same coax connector, "la prise antenne".

 

 

[Secamline]

I see... I thought all SECAM devices had a SECART output ^^ Still I've never seen a VCS displaying SECAM colors :S

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

I've never seen a VCS displaying SECAM colors :S

 

Lucky you !

 

[Secamline]

Yeah I've seen some screenshots like this one before, I feel sorry for those who had a SECAM VCS back in the days. Same price, 32 times less colors, what a secam!

[AlwaysOnPlanetPatrol]

 

Lucky you !

 

 

Mon dieu, c'est magnifique!

 

Was Belgium PAL or SECAM? I always found it funny how many of the TV sets from France supported PAL and SECAM. My dad was a tech in Europe and he repaired a lot of TVs from French immigrants. I guess the advantage would be to be able to receive signals from RTL or ZDF/ARD if you were close enough.

Edited March 9, 2018 by AlwaysOnPlanetPatrol

[+x=usr(1536)]

 

Mon dieu, c'est magnifique!

 

Was Belgium PAL or SECAM? I always found it funny how many of the TV sets from France supported PAL and SECAM. My dad was a tech in Europe and he repaired a lot of TVs from French immigrants. I guess the advantage would be to be able to receive signals from RTL or ZDF/ARD if you were close enough.

 

Belgium used PAL, IIRC.

 

For what it's worth, we used to be able to pick up SECAM transmissions occasionally if the conditions were exactly right. They'd usually drift in and out, and the combination of distance weakening the signal, interference, and differences in the color fields made for some rather eerie visuals by the time they were showing on the PAL TV.

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

Yes you're right, Belgium and most of western europe (except France) was pal. You're from Belgium x=usr ?

[Secamline]

If french TV could PAL video output, then why was there a SECAM 2600 in the first place?

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

At first, french tv were secam only. I guess there was some law too, that a device officially sold had to output secam. That's the reason why later junior had a peritel (scart) connector.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Yes you're right, Belgium and most of western europe (except France) was pal. You're from Belgium x=usr ?

I'm from a couple of hops to the West of Belgium I live in the US now, though.

 

Growing up, I had family who worked in the entertainment industry. We had multiscan TVs and VCRs in our home as a result, because they needed to be able to play back videotapes that would be sent to them from the US and elsewhere. I was probably the only 10-year-old in the country who knew that the US' NTSC standard ran at 3.58MHz, while Japan's version ran at 4.43MHz.

 

One side effect of this is that we used to be sent movies that had already been released months prior in the US but that hadn't made it to the cinema in Europe yet. The Internet has kinda killed that, though