Determining the Tape's Origin

• The playback technology you need depends on the origin of the VHS cassette. If the cassette has a label, check for the country of origin. If the cassette is a recording of a particular program or series, run an Internet search to check for the country where the program was filmed or broadcast. Once you have a good idea about your cassette's country of origin, match it up to the format used by that country at the time the tape was made.
  
  The countries of Europe mainly used two different formats during the VHS production era: PAL (used in all of Western Europe aside from France) and SECAM (variants were used in France, the former Soviet Union, and present-day Russia and Belarus). After the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, many former Soviet republics such as the Ukraine (and Soviet bloc nations such as Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary) switched from SECAM to PAL. Note that although most French-language cassettes were produced in France using the SECAM standard, many were also produced in Belgium, Luxembourg, or Switzerland using the PAL standard.
  
  

Playing the Tape

• If you do not already own a device capable of playing back the PAL or SECAM formats, you may wish to purchase one. If this is unaffordable, some colleges, libraries, or universities may have media labs available for public use with the technology you need. If you cannot determine the format of your cassette, you will need a playback device capable of handling both PAL and SECAM.