SECAM, also written SÉCAM (, Séquentiel de couleur à mémoire, French for color sequential with memory), is an analog color television system that was used in France, some parts of Europe and Africa, and Russia. It was one of three major analog color television standards, the others being PAL and NTSC. This page primarily discusses the SECAM colour encoding system. The articles on broadcast television systems and analog television further describe frame rates, image resolution, and audio modulation. SECAM video is composite video because the luminance (luma, monochrome image) and chrominance (chroma, color applied to the monochrome image) are transmitted together as one signal. All the countries using SECAM are currently in the process of conversion, or have already converted to Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), the new pan-European standard for digital television. SECAM remained a major standard into the 2000s. History Development of SECAM predates PAL, and began in 1956 by a team led by Henri de France working at Compagnie Française de Télévision (later bought by Thomson, now Technicolor). NTSC was considered undesirable in Europe because of its tint problem, requiring an additional control, which SECAM (and PAL) solved. Some have argued that the primary motivation for the development of SECAM in France was to protect French television equipment manufacturers. However, incompatibility had started with the earlier unusual decision to adopt positive video modulation for 819-line French broadcast signals (only the UK's 405-line was similar; widely adopted 525- and 625-line systems used negative video). Nonetheless, SECAM was partly developed for reasons of national pride. Henri de France's personal charisma and ambition may have been a contributing factor. PAL was developed by Telefunken, a German company, and in the post-war De Gaulle era there would have been much political resistance to dropping a French-developed system and adopting a German-developed one instead. The first proposed system was called SECAM I in 1961, followed by other studies to improve compatibility and image quality, but it was too soon for a wide introduction. A version of SECAM for the French 819-line television standard was devised and tested, but not introduced. Following a pan-European agreement to introduce color TV only on 625-line broadcasts, France had to switch to that system, which happened in 1963 with the introduction of "la deuxième chaîne ORTF" France 2, the second national TV network. Further improvements during 1963 and 1964 to the standard were called SECAM II and SECAM