NTSC Video System

NTSC short for National Television System Committee is a video and television standard in USA which was devised by NTSC television broadcast system in 1953.

The NTSC standard has a composite video signal with a refresh rate of 60 half-frames (interlaced) per second. Each frame contains 525 lines and can contain 16 million different colors. The fixed vertical resolution of 525 horizontal lines stacked on top of each other with varying amounts of lines make up the horizontal resolution, depending upon the electronics and formats involved. NTSC standard has 59.94 fields displayed per second where a single field consists of a set of even or odd lines. Both of these even and odd fields are displayed sequentially in order to complete a full frame. Thus a single frame consists of two interlaced fields which are displayed about every 1/30 of a second.

Never (Twice) The Same Color as the acronym for NTSC is more appropriately called, has an inconsistent color standard is which is technologically inferior to systems developed later (except for a faster frame-per-second rate), many technical improvements have improved the NTSC picture over the years.

Another interesting thing about NTSC standard is that they are not compatible with most of the computer used video standards, which are mostly based on using RGB video signal scheme. To enable your computer to play the NTSC based recordings or display NTSC signal, special video cards are used to convert the NSTC signals into computer video signals and vice versa. NTSC standard commonly refer to one type of television signal that can be recorded on various storage mediums like VHS, 3/4" U-matic and Betacam tapes.

Besides USA, the whole list of countries that uses the NTSC standards are as under: Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Burma, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greenland, Guam, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent the Grenadines, St. Kitts, Saipan, Samoa, Surinam, Taiwan, Tobago, Trinidad, Venezuela, Virgin Islands.