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We have been using the American NTSC standard of 525 lines since 1950. That for black and white, of course. As for color broadcasts, we have a hybrid system in use since 1972: it's called PAL-M, which combines the German PAL color system with the American monochrome "M" of 525 lines. I am really not sure of why they did this and simply didn't adopted color NTSC from the start, as some experimental color NTSC broadcasts were actually made here in 1963 and 64 and even some 300 American color sets with roundie CRTs were sold at the time to the public. The official explanation is that they ( the government ) were not satisfied with color NTSC, they found it to be too... unstable. So they decided to create this hybrid system. They analysed some of the few color TV systems available in the world at that time ( late 1960's ) and decided that the German system was the better. So, again, that's the official version. But because since April, 1st, 1964, Brazil was under a military dictatorship, we cannot really trust this version to be true; we cannot say that they didn't had some OTHER types of interest in mind.
They decided to adopt PAL for color. That still left them with the problem of what to do with the 4 million monochrome TV sets in use in the country at that time, all of them using the American standard. They could not allienate all those TV viewers. So they couldn't use "pure PAL" , that's why the hybrid PAL-M system was created.
Research on the PAL-M system began in 1968. By 1970 the system was already operational, but would only be available to the public in 1972; even in 1972 the TV stations were not happy with the idea of investing tons of money on expensive color equipment for just a few thousand viewers, but the dictatorship forced - that's the truth - it upon the TV stations. I believe the stations wanted to wait until 1974, if my information is correct, but the generals in charge of the country wanted color TV like desperates; it was a part of their public relations strategy of giving to the public the message that they were "modernizing" the country.
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