Oh politics..... the former Soviet Union went with a slightly modified SECAM standard as David Herren pointed out. Video Recordings today are almost always made on PAL machines. Many of the VCRs and TV sets in Russia are dual, sometimes even triple standard, but the favorite recording standard sems to be PAL (despite the awful flicker of the 25Hz screen!) I have not seen SECAM recordings coming out of Russia for quite a while (and we get quite a few...) I believe Russian television is still broadcasting in SECAM. Otmar Foelsche