Sony KR5-1J SECAM Beta alignment tape

[dj_fivos_sak]

Hello everyone. I found this interesting and rare tape a couple of weeks ago. What caught my attention is the fact it's the SECAM version so I'd thought I would grab it and give it a try on my various PAL/SECAM and multi standard machines. My SL-C9ES totally refuses to play it back in colour even with a SECAM PB modification done to it, presumably because the tape is recorded in the French SECAM variant and such modifications only allow MESECAM to be played back. However, my Middle Eastern-market Sanyo VTC 5550 detects it as a SECAM tape and plays it back fine with the expected chroma noise here and there, so that pretty much answers the question that Middle Eastern Beta machines CAN play French SECAM too. I have a question though. On the monoscope pattern where you check for the dihedral of the video heads (looks perfect btw), should the flagging below the switching point be that high? It looks the same on both the Sony (back-tension applied by the direct drive reel motor) and the Sanyo (back-tension applied by a conventional tension band). Is this related to the age of the tape (stretching)? All in all it seems to be in pristine condition, almost no dropouts. Last image is courtesy of Mr Betamax.

Regards

Fivos

[marceljack]

Only VHS had two versions of SECAM recording:
-so-called french SECAM where the subcarrier was divided by 4 (possible because of the FM nature of the subcarrier, thus simplifying the processing),
-so-called MESECAM where the subcarrier is downconverted, like in PAL or NTSC but with different filtering (so called "cloche" and "anticloche" filters)

All other sytems (Betamax, V2000, VCR/SVR...) used down conversion.

[dj_fivos_sak]

Ah, thanks for your explanation. I was aware of VHS's divide-by-4 method. While I was reading through my SL-T50ME adjustment manual, I came across two adjustments called "bell filter" and "counter bell filter". Are these the same or equivalents to the cloche/anticloche filters? My SL-T30 and T50 machines claim they support "SECAM 1 and 2". That's why I thought of Beta being similar to VHS with its two SECAM variants.

[marceljack]

Yes, "bell" and "counterbell" are the english translation of the french "cloche" and "anticloche".
Regarding your questions on the monoscope, I cannot help because I have no experience on that.

However something which might explain why your SECAM tape does not work on some machines might be the identification method.
Initially te SECAM system used frame identification (lines with subcarrier during the frame flyback), later on these identification lines where freed to make place for teletext and identification was done by using the subcarrier alternance from line to line on the back porch, it was called line identification.

So older machines might not identify SECAM with tapes having no identification lines during the frame flyback.
Another possible explanation is a misadjusment ...

[dj_fivos_sak]

Ah, interesting. This solves one of my mysteries when I saw a Greek advertisement for a Siemens colour TV and it mentioned the following:
"Can receive PAL, SECAM Vertical, SECAM Horizontal (SECAM III b Line Identification)."
Was the frame ID method only used in the French L system? Here in Greece we used the B/G system.

[marceljack]

Originally Posted by dj_fivos_sak

Ah, interesting. This solves one of my mysteries when I saw a Greek advertisement for a Siemens colour TV and it mentioned the following:
"Can receive PAL, SECAM Vertical, SECAM Horizontal (SECAM III b Line Identification)."
Was the frame ID method only used in the French L system? Here in Greece we used the B/G system.

As far as I know the frame identification has only been used in France. This has nothing to do with L or BG system and line ident could have been used from day 1 but it was estimated at the beginning (1967) that frame ident was simpler to implement with tubes.
Other countries using SECAM started later when tubes were not used anymore for small signal functions, so they used line ident from the beginning.

[dj_fivos_sak]

I digitized and uploaded the tape here
On the SL-T50ME the color bars look great. I can easily say it's the cleanest SECAM color bars I've ever seen. Do you happen to know what's the purpose of the red and blue bars at the top of the image, and the black and white portion in the middle?

[marceljack]

Originally Posted by dj_fivos_sak

I digitized and uploaded the tape here
On the SL-T50ME the color bars look great. I can easily say it's the cleanest SECAM color bars I've ever seen. Do you happen to know what's the purpose of the red and blue bars at the top of the image, and the black and white portion in the middle?

The black and white portion is for visualizing the grey scale, it should give the same result in the colour bar part when the colour is killed.
The red / blue on the top, I dont know but I have the impression that the red is not pure red like in the colour bar but rather purple, also the blue looks a bit different of the blue of the colour bar.