Editing SECAM (section)

=== Implementation ===
Tested until 1963 on the second French national network "la deuxième chaîne ORTF", the SECAM standard was adopted in [[France]] and launched on 1 October 1967, now called France 2. A group of four suited men—a presenter ([[Georges Gorse]], Minister of Information) and three contributors to the system's development—were shown standing in a studio. Following a count from 10, at 2:15&nbsp;pm the black-and-white image switched to color; the presenter then declared "''Et voici la couleur !''" (fr: And here is color!)<ref>{{cite web |title=INA: Présentation officielle de la télévision couleur |url=http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF86633716/presentation-officielle-de-la-television-couleur.fr.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520171238/http://www.ina.fr/video/CPF86633716/presentation-officielle-de-la-television-couleur.fr.html |archive-date=20 May 2011 |access-date=4 August 2014}}</ref> In the same year of 1967, CLT of [[Lebanon]] became the third television station in the world, after [[France 2]] in [[France]] and the [[Soviet Central Television]] in the [[Soviet Union]], to broadcast in color utilizing the French SECAM technology.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Harb |first1=Zahera |title=Channels of resistance in Lebanon: liberation propaganda, Hezbollah and the media |date=2011 |publisher=Tauris |isbn=978-1-84885-120-7 |location=London [etc.] |page=95}}</ref>

The first color television sets cost 5000 [[French franc|francs]]. Color TV was not very popular initially; only about 1500 people watched the inaugural program in color. A year later in 1968, only 200,000 sets had been sold of an expected million. This pattern was similar to the earlier slow build-up of color television popularity in the US.{{Synthesis inline|date=May 2024}}

In March 1969, [[East Germany]] decided to adopt SECAM III B.<ref name="auto4" /> The adoption of SECAM in Eastern Europe has been attributed to [[Cold War]] political machinations.  According to this explanation, East German political authorities were well aware of West German television's popularity and adopted SECAM rather than the PAL encoding used in [[West Germany]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Glaubitz |first=Gerald |title=Die PAL-SECAM-Kontroverse in der DDR: Die politisch-ideologische Instrumentalisierung der Farbfernsehfrage durch den ostdeutschen Staat zwischen 1965 und 1969 |publisher=GNT-Verlag |year=2004 |isbn=978-3928186735 |location=Diepholz}}</ref> This did not hinder mutual reception in black and white, because the underlying TV standards remained essentially the same in both parts of Germany. However, [[East Germany|East Germans]] responded by buying PAL decoders for their SECAM sets. Eventually, the government in East Berlin stopped paying attention to so-called "[[Republikflucht]] via Fernsehen", or "defection via television". Later East German–produced TV sets, such as the [[:de:Chromat (Fernsehgerät)|RFT Chromat]], even included a dual standard PAL/SECAM decoder as an option.

Another explanation for the Eastern European adoption of SECAM, led by the Soviet Union, is that the Russians had extremely long distribution lines between broadcasting stations and transmitters.<ref>{{cite web |date=25 July 1963 |title=Colour Television for Europe, New Scientist, 23 July 1963 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bmtByFnNCOQC&pg=PA197}}</ref> Long co-axial cables or microwave links can cause amplitude and phase variations, which do not affect SECAM signals.

Other countries, notably the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Italy]], briefly experimented with SECAM before opting for PAL. SECAM was adopted by former French and [[Belgium|Belgian]] colonies in [[Africa]], as well as [[Greece]], [[Cyprus]], and [[Eastern Bloc]] countries (except for [[Romania]]) and some [[Middle East]]ern countries.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}

European efforts during the 1980–90s towards the creation of a unified analog standard, resulting in the [[Multiplexed Analogue Components|MAC standards]], still used the sequential color transmission idea of SECAM, with only one of time-compressed [[Y′UV|U and V components]] being transmitted on a given line. The [[D2-MAC]] standard enjoyed some short real market deployment, particularly in northern European countries. To some extent, this idea is still present in [[Chroma subsampling|4:2:0]] digital sampling format, which is used by most [[digital video]] media available to the public. In this case, however, color resolution is halved in both horizontal and vertical directions thus yielding a more symmetrical behavior.