Overseas Video Lab is not responsible or any Errors or Omissions
on this list.
To be used only as a reference.
The NTSC Broadcast Standard
The National Television Systems Committee's (NTSC) 525 line,
30 frames per second system is shared primarily by the United
States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, and most of
South and Central America. The NTSC standard was first developed for
black and white (monochrome) television in 1941. In 1953,
the color standard was established. The NTSC system of television
is referred to as a 525 line, 60-field system because, as
we've seen, the 30 frames consist of 60-fields. The NTSC's 60-field system originally based
its timing cycle on the 60 Hz (cycle) electrical system used
in these countries. Since other countries in the world use
a 50 Hz electrical system, it was logical for them to develop
systems of television based on 50 fields per second. The basic NTSC standard is more than 50 years
old, and many technical improvements have come along during
this half-century. Digital TV (DTV) and High Definition (HDTV)
standards take advantage of many new technical capabilities
and provide major improvements over the original NTSC standard.
The PAL and SECAM Television
Systems
More than half of the countries in the world use one of two
625 line, 25 frame systems: the SECAM (Sequential Color and
Memory) or the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) system. PAL, is a modified and somewhat improved version
of NTSC. It was developed in Germany and is used in Britain
and most of Western Europe, Africa and Asia. SECAM was originally developed
in France as a non-compatible system designed to protect the
country's manufacturing industry from foreign electronic imports.
Because SECAM is incompatible with other TV systems, it was
adopted by the Communist countries to prevent their people
from viewing TV programming from noncommunist countries. Technically,
SECAM is the simplest TV system in the world.The extra 100 lines in the SECAM and PAL systems
add detail and clarity to the video picture, but the 50 fields
per second (compared to 60-fields in the NTSC system) means
that a slight flicker can sometimes be noticed. Even so, the 25 frames per second (fps) standard
is very close to the international film standard of 24 fps.
Therefore, the 24 fps film standard is easily converted to
the PAL and SECAM video systems. (Slightly speeding up film
to 25 fps can't really be noticed.)
