Henri de France

Who was Henri de France?

Henri Georges de France was a pioneering French television inventor. His inventions include the 819 line French standard and the SECAM color system. He was also apparently behind the HD-MAC high-definition standard.

On December 6, 1931, De France founded the Compagnie Générale de Télévision in Le Havre, making television sets with a vertical definition of 60 lines. In February 1932, De France made several transmissions over a distance of 7 km from the "Radio-Normandie" station in Fécamp. These signals were received by a few people located over 100 km away. In October 1932, he achieved a definition of 120 lines. In 1956, he patented the SECAM color television system. On October 1, 1967 at 2:15pm CET, la deuxième chaîne switched from black and white to color using SECAM.

De France is interred at Jarnac, the same town where former president François Mitterrand is buried.

The public passage near France Télévisions buildings in Paris is named Esplanade Henri de France.