How terrible is a $58 smartphone?

[froggyboy604]

To add a few things in, France and Russia were big supporters of SECAM back in the day, and so was a good portion of Africa.
And a good number of Asian countries used NTSC.

Also appears that larger South American countries were using PAL, and tiny European countries like Luxembourg and Andorra were using NTSC.

And another thing I would like to point out is that Japan originally used both standards; NTSC in the south, and PAL in the north.

It is interesting that there are so many TV video formats, and most countries pick PAL instead of NTSC. I never knew that there were Asian countries which used NTSC, and PAL and SECAM was so popular in Africa.

 

[テクニカル諏訪子]

SECAM in Africa can be sort of explained actually.
The African countries that used SECAM were all controlled by France at the time of introduction, so it only makes sense for them to adopt it.
Also, many communist countries also used SECAM, but many of them switched over to PAL over time.

 

[froggyboy604]

I wonder how many African actually earn enough money to buy a TV back in the past when TV sets cost more money. I think most of the television sets maybe owned by the countries which controlled the African countries.

I think communist countries may of switch to PAL because more quality content maybe saved as PAL instead of SECAM. I think most DVD players, and game consoles mostly supported NTSC and PAL in the past.

 

[Danielx64]

Not sure if true, but I have a feeling that PAL and NTSC don't really mean much today when it comes to digital videos on iTunes and blue-rays.

 

[テクニカル諏訪子]

I wonder how many African actually earn enough money to buy a TV back in the past when TV sets cost more money. I think most of the television sets maybe owned by the countries which controlled the African countries.

I think communist countries may of switch to PAL because more quality content maybe saved as PAL instead of SECAM. I think most DVD players, and game consoles mostly supported NTSC and PAL in the past.

Not all of Africa is just desert really.
Most of the coastal areas are actually quite urban.
A good example of what used to be good would be Libya; it was among the richest countries in Africa until the Americans/British/French invaded it, and turned it into the permanent warzone we know it as today.

As for communist countries, that's not really the case.
France has never been communist to begin with, and it even invented SECAM.
And the people in communist countries only rarely learnt English during the Soviet era, or any western language that's not German for that matter, so I don't think content would have been the real cause.

Not sure if true, but I have a feeling that PAL and NTSC don't really mean much today when it comes to digital videos on iTunes and blue-rays.

You're correct.
PAL, NTSC, and SECAM were really just analogue standards.
HDMI-enabled TVs, or any kind of digital content in fact, have nothing to do with these standards.
"PAL" is still being referred to as "Europe and Australia" by gamers, but the last analogue console was the Nintendo Wii, so the use of this term today is wrong.